~ my kinda place ~
“Kudat is in the very north of Sabah and gets very few Westen visitors. It has a noticeable Filipino influence...the Sunrise Hotel, in the old part of town...is a friendly place”[Attribution: South East Asia On A Shoestring Lonely Planet Publications 2001: 527]. The 'Tip of Borneo'. “Could dat” be my sort of place I'd thought back at Tawau as I was considering 'where to go next'. Well, now from Kota Kinabalu it's only a convenient, comfortable three hour shared-taxi ride away. So my Sabahan journey of 2010 continues to this northern tip of Borneo close to the southern Philippines. It's a region not so long ago notorious for the kidnapping of tourists but these days there's absolutely no such threat.
April 10. Off to Kudat. After staying in Kota Kinabalu for three nights, it's pack up and check out time from the Filipino-run 'Pamol-Swiss'. It's has Rm30 per night rooms. It's a 'lodging' in Sinsuran, downtown Kota Kinabalu. The open-air taxi and minibus park's conveniently just around the corner opposite the Indian roti restaurant we've been frequenting most mornings. There's a photogenic mosque on the hill behind the taxi 'park'. There are also less attractive, somewhat dated tenement apartment buildings adjacent. There's a 'water machine' on the sidewalk for cheap refills and a few big, old 'rain-trees' for shade from the searing sun.
The road to Kudat's inland of the coast most of the journey. There's some very pleasant scenery. Not an oil palm plantation in sight! Yet! And always the towering presence of that prime piece of Sabahan “real” estate: Mt.Kinabalu. It's Sabah's main attraction "...the highest mountain between the mighty Himalayas and Mt.Puncak Jaya in Papua. Mt.Kinabalu towers 4101m above what's left of the lush tropical forests of northern Borneo and is the centrepiece of the vast 750-sq-km Kinabalu National Park” [Attribution: South East Asia On A Shoestring Lonely Planet Publications 2001:527-8]. Today's the closest I get to it...on the coastal journey north to Kudat!
Kudat. The original town is near to wharfs. Further west there's an esplanade and modern, soulless, but typically Malaysian small-town architecture. Beyond lies the golf course and up-market hotel and marina. Continue along the coast and you're at the Tip of Borneo. The taxi pulls in on the main street of the 'old town'. A stone throw away, just across the road, we check in to the Sunrise Hotel for RM28 or US$9 per night. It's a strange room. Cheaper because guests must share a toilet; it's without a mandi inside. It also doesn't have a TV or a fan. It does have a noisy old air-con unit. And most unusually, wall-to-wall carpet and a wall-length mirror which Ms. Noni loves. There are cheaper RM20 rooms but they're really, really basic. Ms. Noni and I stay five or six nights...everyday exploring the town and it's surroundings. Always on foot.
Sabah has lingering nuances of having been a slightly upper-class British colony. The British North Borneo Company ran the place until incorporation into an independent Malaysia in 1963. In Kudat though there's not much evidence of this. These days Borneo and Sabah attracts the more adventurous traveler. There are not many in evidence in Kudat...at least at this time of year! Most I assume go on the mountain or dive off Sempurna, popularized by Jacques Cousteau: one of the best dive sites in the world. Later, back in Kota Kinabalu I overhear a tourist say that the plastic rubbish spoils it a bit! In the five days in Kudat we meet only one expat. John's English and maybe in his late 40s. He sold his yacht about five years ago now and bought land out at the Tip of Borneo. He loves it here. We agreed....let's keep Kudat a secret, eh! Other expats he explains, can be found hanging out at the yacht marina and golf club! Some teach English language here but I don't bother to track them down!
Laid-back, free-and-easy and relaxed as I might be here, I experience increasing worries about money and renewing my passport. I worry about Ms Noni too. She's great, but I'm paying both our ways. I'm burning through something like US$25 a day! On doing some sums, I've spent Rm900 in 12 days which is a lot for me! My health is good. I do lots of walking. I'm eating very well too...wonderful seafood and of course roti kosong/curry ayam...and sex.
But it's definitely "doing something 'bout it time". That's why I tell Noni on the fourteenth that we go back to Kota Kinabalu. Perhaps I must find some money. The only way I know is to work. There are schools here in Kudat, but I haven't made any effort. Could I live happily ever after with the girl? She doesn't want me to leave! But I may have no option. Regardless of obtaining employment, I resolve to stick around Sabah until the end of my Sacom money or for another couple of weeks at this rate! That leaves me with the about US$500 in my Thai bank. It's maybe just enough to get over to Singapore or Kuala Lumpur for a new passport and back to Vietnam...where I have US$450 waiting.
Postscript. Six weeks later...I haven't had to stop traveling. I write this up in a very good $5 room in Nha Trang, Vietnam. I muse that I do now have a new passport...4 pages gone already...and very little money, no job and a visa-expiry in 3 weeks to deal with. I've really got to get round to taking earning some money again seriously. No passengers either since Ms.Noni. Back to normality but with the odd emotional feeling welling up when I think and write about my Kudat journey and the mostly carefree, relaxed days spent together 'cruising on foot' around the town and it's appealing environs.