We booked tour at STA travel and we couldn't believe how easy it all was. After our bags were the last to come round on the conveyer belt and we were the last out of the arrivals hall we walked out to see a man holding a sign with our name on it. He then drove us to our 3* hotel. And after hostelling, this was a lovely sight....
Our tour began the next day with a guided walk around the city and the spice market. Our itinary said to meet down stairs at 930am. At 940am our room phone rang and we had overslept! We chucked on some clothes and ran downstairs to meet our tour guide Dan (he's actually called Fabian, but that's a different story). Dan took us round and showed us some of the original buildings in Kota Kinabalu most of which were built after WW2 as the city was destroyed during the war. He then took us round the market and this is where I smelt Durian. Durian is a Malaysian fruit that smells vile! Dan told us a story about a Malaysian person who craved a durian whilst in the UK. He managed to find one but it ended in his university halls being evacuated because someone thought there was a gas leak. They are pretty grim!
On day two of the tour we had an early start and left our hotel at 730 am (we set an alarm and a wake up call). We travelled for about an hour an a half to a small market village at the 'knee' of Mount Kinabalu. Check out the view!
From here we wet up to Mount Kinabalu National Park where there is a garden that showcases all the plants in the park in one place. This causes less impact on the land visitors can see all the plants in one place rather than having to trek across miles of terrain to find one plant.
Here are a few cool plants native plants of Malaysia.
We also saw some dandelions and asked Dan how they got there. He said that people had brought them in on their boots over from England. They are seen as a weed over there too. NZ have very strict biodiversity laws and so, when we came in, we had to have our bags and boots checked and we got our boots cleaned to make sure we didn't bring anything harmful to the environment.
We stopped for buffet lunch in this idyllic setting before we climbed to the rainforest canopy to do a canopy walk.
The canopy walk was pretty spectacular! Some of the views were breath taking but we could only take one camera so look our for Rachel's photos on Facebook.
After we went to take a dip in the hot pools. The water is naturally warmed by tectonic activity.
You could enter the public pools for free but we decided to rent our own Jacuzzi for RM20 (that's £4) for an hour.
Lovely way to finish the day!
Onto the third day of the tour we were taken to some lovely picture perfect islands where we snorkelled and lay in the sun. I promise these photos are real and have not been photo shopped at all.
The tour we booked though STA was a right bargin and great value for money. We had our own private tour guide, stayed n a lovely hotel, had some food paid for and it was just a lovely experience. I would recommend if you only have a short time to spend in one place.
Ciao for now
xx
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