Departure
The air ticket wrote, boarding time 0640. My watch said, 0610. All of them except my pax reached the airport on time. We were late.

Flying to Kota Kinabalu was pleasant. We reached Kota Kinabalu at approximately 9.45am. Check-out was easy and so does getting a taxi down to the heart of town. While at town, we made a quick stop at Centre Point Mall (KK's largest shopping mall) for lunch and for some last minute shopping. We then formed a line and marched toward long distance bus station for our next 2.5 hours ride to Kinabalu National Park.

 

Bus ride
Me: "Berapa dari sini ke Taman Negara?".

Conductor: "Aiyer, RM15 sahaja. Ada air-cond! Mari mari.. naik bus! Express punya..".

Me: "RM15 seorang? Mahal oooh!...".

From local passer-by, I was told that a trip to Kinabalu Park is only RM10 per person. To confirm the rumours, I teamed up with Boey and we walked away until we spotted a sign board.

The sign board wrote, "Ranau - RM10 seorang".

Me: "Hey Boey, Ranau RM10 per person right?".

Boey: "Urm, yeah".

Me: "So why the heck is that bloody bugger charging us RM15? @!#$*%!&@#$(*!@#".

In the end, we settled for RM12 per person. The extra RM2 was meant for express service. However, we were stranded at the station for 2 hours before the bus came.

Kinabalu Park
We headed straight to the headquarter office the moment we drop ourselves off the sandwiched bus. First impression of the park, "Wah. So dark? Where's the light?". We were in the office and it was dark and dull. I had to walk my way through with the help of candles. The park staff were polite and serviced me profesionally. My queries were done within minutes. Apparently, the power generator for the park was in the midst of maintainance hence the romantic candle light check-in. Everybody were looking around the office and surrounding area. Out of nowhere, our excitement roared furiously - the 'Kinabalu Park - World Heritage Site' sign board was spotted.

"Ok, everybody ready? SAY CHEEEESSSEEEE!!!"... *snap!*

"Wait wait wait.... don't move!! change camera!..."

*snap!*

"Waittttttt... another camera!"

*snap!*

"Another!"...

*snap!*

.. and the action repeated a few times more.

 

Medang Hostel and Dinner
"Sorry, but Menggilan is under maintenance tonight. Your room will be at Medang. A room of 12 and the remaining 6 will be in another room with others".

For RM12.00 per night, you really don't have much to argue. Both hostel facilities and pricing were equal anyway. A retro hostel with 6 bunk beds being squezed into each room. We only had a small common area in the middle to place our large rucksack. 12 of us went into the first room. The remains shared their room with Germans and Koreans located at the other end. I did not put my night there. Instead, Valerie, Ervie and I went to Adrian and Phui Tin's backpacker banglow (Warden's Lodge) located just next to the headquarter office - a good 10 minutes walk away from Medang and it's reasonably priced at RM20 per person.

Dinner was suprisingly good. I could easily give the restaurant a 8/10 rating. Beautifully renovated restaurant with highly trained waiters. Menu serving local and western food at reasonable price tag. Slightly expensive but it's acceptable. Heinekens were at RM8.50 per can and we started ordering.

 

 

We went to bed early as we will be waking up early for Laban Rata hike the next day >>