Kota Kinabalu and Poring Springs
I arrived to Kota Kinabalu (also known as KK) on a rainy afternoon. I was told ahead of time that KK is not a very charming city and I couldn’t agree more. It is just a strange place where so many different types of styles have been mixed together. On one hand, you have the luxurious shopping malls with all the famous American brands, next to it you have a huge market hall with little stalls selling mostly junk, then there are Chinese hotels, then a large area of nothing that looks mostly inhabited, and after that you have more shopping malls. The only “attraction” of KK are its numerous markets. There is a handicraft market, a night market, a vegetable market, a spice market, a clothing market etc. It goes on for hundreds of meters all the way along the waterfront. I have never seen a city with so many markets! Other than that, there is really nothing special about the city.
The main reason I went to KK was to climb Mt Kinabalu. I had one more day to kill before the ascent, so I decided to go to Poring Hot Springs. It was highly recommended in the lonely planet and I figured it would be nice to go for a swim in some natural springs.
Sadly, as soon as you want to go a little bit away from the super touristy areas, transportation becomes a real issue… So I ended up having to stand by the side of the street and stop every bus that was going in the right direction. Of course the buses took advantage of my situation to overcharge me. My first bus got me half way there to Ranau. Then it got even more difficult. I spent a lot of time negotiating and arguing with minibus drivers to get me to my destination at a reasonable price. It was a really painful process and sadly it only confirmed the image I was starting to have of Malaysia: there is no piece of advice or general helpfulness/friendliness that comes for free in Malaysia. Everyone takes every opportunity they have to charge you three to five times more than locals, which ends up being sometimes more than you would pay for it in the US or Europe.
When I arrived to the hot springs I was further disappointed. There is no such thing as natural springs. They basically transformed the springs into a set of swimming pools and everyone, men and women (except children), went into them fully dressed. I didn’t feel like going after all… So I went to the 2nd biggest attraction in the area: the jungle canopy walk. The canopy walk was fun, but it consisted of just 3 bridges and of course I was charged extra for it.
Finally, I went to see the Rafflesia flower outside of the park. This was perhaps the only attraction that made the trip worth it. The Rafflesia flower is the largest flower in the world and can be up to one meter in diameter. It only blooms once for 5-6 days and dies afterwards. 80% of Rafflesia flowers die before ever blooming. So it is an extremely rare sight to see this flower bloom. I was fortunate that a local had a flower blooming in his garden right when I was going to the hot springs. Indeed, the flower was very impressive. It was bright red and maybe 60cm in diameter. But by now you also won’t be surprised to hear that he charged me quite a bit to enter his garden…. What a headache…