8:20am, I went to Gaya Coconut Shake (加雅椰) to have breakfast — not coconut shake so early in the morning. I had a chicken ham & egg sandwich, a butter-kaya toast, 2 soft-boiled eggs and kopi-o kosong. Since I had ordered a toast, I chose soft white bread for the sandwich.
After breakfast, I went back to my room to prepare my backpack for flying — I was too tired to pack the night before after the Kundasang day-trip.
10:30am, I checked out from Hotel Gaia 95 and walked few steps to Peppermint Restaurant. I had tried their Vietnamese beef noodle 2 days back and went for the beef stew with rice this time with Vietnamese traditional coffee. I forgot to specify no-milk but, fortunately, it was not too sweet. The stewed beef was very soft and quite a large amount. And it was served with chicken rice (rice cooked with chicken stock), not plain rice.
I knew I would be very early and would have a long waiting time at the airport. But there was nothing else I would like to do in Kota Kinabalu, except maybe sitting in a cafe, but that could be done in the airport too. So, I got a Grab car to KKIA Terminal 1 and reached around 12pm.
I had about 2 hours to boarding but the AirAsia flight to Sandakan was rescheduled and increased my waiting time by another 15 minutes. There was no need for me to check-in since I had an e-boarding pass. But, I searched for a weighing machine to weigh my backpack — 6.2Kg. I had not bought any local products yet, which would have to wait till just before leaving Sabah. Actually, l had noticed that so long as my baggage was not too bulky, no one would check its weight.
For “Within Sabah” departures, there was no need to go through immigration, so I was directed to a different gate beside McDonald. After having my baggage scanned and boarding pass verified, I came to the departure area. So, for “Within Sabah” flights, about an hour earlier would be sufficient, barring any screw-ups. With so much time to spare, I charged my phone at a Charging Station. It took all my spare time to charge and I did not have time to be in a cafe.
AirAsia flight AK 6494 departed at 3:05pm, delayed by a total of 30 minutes. It was just a 45 minutes journey by air to Sandakan (cost RM318 all-in, two-way and last-minute booking), which was still better than riding 7.5 hours in a long-distance bus (RM43) and not including the journey from Gaya Street to Terminal Inanam.
The flight landed at Sandakan Airport at 3:50pm and I hailed a Grab car to the Hotel AeCOTEL (RM14) in the old town of Sandakan near the waterfront. It took nearly 25 minutes of travelling through sparse clusters of both new buildings and old wooden houses till it reached the old town with pre-war high-rise structures — and they looked like buildings in Hong Kong.
Hotel AeCOTEL was located above a 99 Speedmart mini-mart. The registration counter was on the second floor with the main door just beside the mini-mart. Checking-in was hassle-free, a staff was cleaning the stair near the door, opened it for me, asked my name and passed me a key — that’s all. However, the hotel was unmanned most of the time, the staff was in the hotel only to clean the rooms. If the staff was not around during check-in, I would need to use a password to unlock the door.
The standard single room I got had windows facing a road and a park across the road. There was a connecting door to an (unoccupied) adjacent room that was locked. My room was very warm due to its wall being heated by the hot afternoon sun.
I changed out of my flight suit to something more comfortable before hitting the streets to scout around the old town. It was already 5pm, the sky was cloudy and the sun nowhere in sight. My primary objective was to locate the “bus terminal near Nak Hotel“ for the shared minivan or bus (No. 14) to Sepilok Orangutan Rehabilitation Centre. I could not see any Sepilok-bound buses, probably because there were no more services for the day. I would need to find the bus the next day.
I continued to look out for shops and restaurants that were still opened. There were also waterfront restaurants, a shopping mall called Harbour Mall Sandakan, an art lane themed “Little Hong Kong”, Sandakan Central Market, some murals, etc. I used more than an hour to walk around the area.
As night fell, the old town became dark with few street lights when most of the shops closed. The brighter areas were around Harbour Mall Sandakan and the waterfront restaurants. There were not many food options in the old town at night.
I saw a Mee Tarik Kung Fu La Mian (功夫拉面) restaurant, on Google Maps, and went there. The Chinese-Muslim restaurant was located near to the edge of the old town. "Mee tarik" was a direct translation from the Chinese "la mian" (拉面) or "pull noodle", which was the same as Japanese "ramen". I had a Chinese-Lanzhou-style beef ramen and watermelon juice. Despite the reddish appearance of the noodle dish, it was not too spicy and tasted great.
I was back in the hotel at 7pm and showered. I also hand-washed my dusty clothings with some detergent that I had brought along, but the orange stains remained on the white T-shirt.
AeCOTEL had the thickest duvet I had ever used. It was so warm that I had to adjust the air-conditioner all the way down to 16°C to try to get a comfortable temperature under the duvet — why would hotels in hot climatic regions use thick duvets, forced guests to set ultra-low air-conditioner temperature and complained about operating costs? In the middle of the night, I set the air-conditioner to 24°C and slept on the duvet, which was far too warm. There were no mosquitoes in the room so it was fine.
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