Thursday, 10 June 2010
For whatever reason we had a restless night’s sleep and awoke less than refreshed to make the ferry crossing back to KK. We packed our stuff, checked out of the hotel and headed down to the ferry terminal to get our tickets. The ticketing office was closed when we arrived, the sign on the door read the office opens at 07:15 and at precisely that time, it did. We got our tickets then went across the road for a coffee. There were a few others in the kopitiam, some rig-workers in their overalls making ready to head out to the offshore platforms for the day. The rain subsided overnight, but things were still a little damp with small puddles left over, so we watched as the cars sloshed down the main street (not exactly peak hour, but it wasn’t too quiet either).
Back across at the ferry terminal, we waited outside the departure gate with a throng of people waiting to get their ferries to wherever. The sign on the door read the departure gate would open at 07:45 and promptly at the time, the door opened and some smaller ferry’s passengers were called to board; then it was our turn just a few minutes later. We boarded and found our “business class” seats (there wasn’t much difference from what we could see between our seats and “economy”) The ferry departed spot on time and headed out past all the oil/gas rig tenders at anchor in the harbour and shaped a course for KK. The trip was calm and uneventful; the movie was awful (“2012”).
We arrived on time in KK and walked off Jesselton Wharf and made our way to Kinabalu Backpackers Lodge where we had stayed at the start of this trip almost one month ago. We dumped our bags and headed off to the Step Inn to retrieve the bag we left there a couple of weeks ago, stopping off for some lunch at a hole-in-the-wall on the way. Tracy was sure the bag would not be there, so was surprised when it was exactly where we had left it. We walked back through town heading towards KBL, stopping in a couple of shops en route out to check out some souvenir prices without actually buying anything.
We dumped the diving gear bag at KBL and went out to do a spot of shopping. As luck would have it, Tracy didn’t bring the umbrella, so of course, it pissed down rain. We went back to one of the dive shops we had seen on a previous visit and bought a few small items which are significantly cheaper here than back home, then went down to Philippine Markets to buy a couple of t-shirts. It was still pouring when we left the markets, we were soaked through but still stopped at our favourite little kopi kedai for a fresh bun and coffee.
Back at KBL we got out of our wet things and hung them up in the room; we don’t realistically expect them to dry, but maybe they will be less wet when it comes time to pack to head back to Australia?
Just after sunset, we showered and headed out for dinner. The rain had eased off, but it was still drizzling and there were deep puddles everywhere. We had no idea what we wanted for dinner, so wandered aimlessly until we arrived at the Night Market. The stalls were all covered with multi-coloured layers of plastic, electric cables ran across the pathways and through the puddles, the strings holding down the tarpaulins were at neck height for Scott; an OHS nightmare and many accidents waiting to happen! We went back to a food wallah we had tried before and ordered mee goreng. The food is plain and we are getting very tired of the limited choices, but with only two nights left on the trip there is not much to do. After our main course, we went over to one of the many stalls selling desserts and bought some triangular shaped pancakes; we had seen these being made before and knew they contained a filling of peanuts, but weren’t aware the batter contains bananas. The result is a not-overly sweet waffle-like pancake flavoured with banana and a filling with a nutty crunch. They were hot from the stall so we carried them back the KBL where they were devoured.