RK meet KK

Three weeks ago I’d never heard of Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia. It was highlighted in an article about incredibly affordable places for expats abroad and I was curious. I’d been to a couple places on the list but had never heard of Kota Kinabalu. Turns out it was near-ish to Bali and before I knew it I was KK bound. Australia and New Zealand would just have to wait.

I don’t know how to describe Kota Kinabalu. It’s gritty, dirty, glitzy, new, old, a blend of Korean, Japanese, Chinese, Islam, Indonesian, Indian and of course, some Malay-aloha type vibes. There’s trash everywhere, really big rats, unbelievable malls, sky-high condos everywhere, there’s almost no car honking or motorbikes (I keep feeling like I’ve gone deaf after Bali) and you couldn’t get me to go in the water…

And I can’t get enough. It’s so raw and confusing it’s fascinating.

Most people spend a few days in KK here island hopping or passing thru on their way to Sandakan for orangutan trekking. I didn’t have enough time for either this trip so it was just urban exploring for me.

KK is on the eastern edge of Borneo island and has a population of about 450,000. I think there are at least eight malls (maybe twice that) and of the eight (to sixteen) malls at least five of them are luxury malls with every high-end store you could name. Then there are budget malls, mid-range malls, convenient stores for every Asian nationality you can name that are all open 24 hours, supermarkets as big as Wal-Mart full of foods I’ve never heard of, to local Whole Foods-like gourmet markets – everywhere. You don’t have to walk more than 3 minutes to find anything you could need, at any price point, in any language, any flavor, anything.

And everyone speaks English. As I was chatting with one of my Grab drivers (Asia’s Uber) trying to get him to explain KK to me because I just couldn’t wrap my head around it and he explained English is considered a mother tongue.

What?!?

Turns out the British ruled over Malaysia until recent times and their legacy left a strong English presence. Crazy…I forget how large the British empire was in SE Asia.

WWII left its mark as well. During the war the Japanese occupied the island to control the oil (oil and gas is still the biggest industry – Shell has the nicest, shiniest office building that totally stands out right in the middle of town, on top of the Mercedes Benz dealership) until the Allied forces bombed everything to the ground. The island was also where the Sandakan death marches occurred which is just a horrible story in human history. I don’t want to repeat it here but you can google it if you want a reminder of how dark humans can be. Malaysians were caught in the middle of all this and after the war had to get their independence and rebuild their country. A lot of the rebuilding was done on reclaimed land (sand pumped from the sea) which is quite common in SE Asia but a nightmare for environmentalists.

The trash here is such a problem it is truly heartbreaking but there’s a cultural difference and lack of education about environmental issues that is just the way it is. The common practice in KK is to just dump your trash down the monsoon drains. There are almost no public trash cans anywhere. The trash then runs out into the sea and washes up on the beach. While this isn’t funny at all, the location of the beach that this trash washes up on is has a hint of irony. It washes up right next to the huge, glitzy state administration building.

The state of Sabah is also running out of water (sadly as much of the world is). This has caused many disruptions in domestic water delivery recently and a disgruntled resident decided to do something about it. SE Asia and KK are home to a lot of digital nomads (ie hackers) and it really seems like the tech-wild west. Well one of these tech cowboys decided to hack the Water Departments Facebook page with ‘lewd images’ and threatened to shut the whole website down if the water interruptions didn’t stop immediately. Given the real issue with clean water in Borneo this looks like a war that is just getting started.

I learned most of this on a walking tour that I joined and while I was trying to wrap my head around all of this – I met Nikki. Nikki is from China and was traveling solo and we started talking about all of this. Nikki couldn’t remember her English name when we first met and I couldn’t pronounce her Chinese name but eventually we both figured it out and had a fab time trying to figure out KK, comparing our countries, discussing the role of leadership in the developing world (and everywhere), the art of getting people to just act decently, and then giving up with all of it and just enjoying some coconut milk by First Beach on a rainy day.

But my favorite part of KK?

The markets. There are so many markets. There’s a Filipino market, a fish market, a souvenir market, a spice market, a dried fish market (how to dry fish properly – on the roof of your car) and the best market – the night market. I can’t eat 99% of what is served at most markets but they are always my favorite part of a city and the KK night market delivered. There’s just something about the rawness, the honesty, the lack of fluff at markets that just feels real. There are surprisingly few tourists in KK and even fewer western tourists so this market is where the locals go and it’s so cheap I can’t even understand. And the people are so sweet. They all want to talk and take pictures and give you samples and you want to talk and take pictures and try samples so it all works out beautifully.