Kampung Likas

We have been lazily lounging around KK (as the locals call it) for a week now, rather unexpectedly! After putting the kids to bed on the first night, they were both in tears from pure exhaustion.

We had planned to do a few nights at an apartment, which was basically on the runway, but had a pool for the kids! However, after a few days we got a bit sick of feeling like we were living at the airport, we hadn’t booked any onwards travel and the kids were still hanging so we went to a new apartment in the town, and ended up staying for a further 5 nights. Having more space was lovely after sharing a hotel room together for 3 weeks.
Funnily, KK hasn’t got all that much going for it, little culture, average food and no green spaces, lots of building work and a lot of rubbish. But, because of that it didn’t feel like we had to do too much here, which worked.

First few days we hung out with the locals at the city beach, near the airport, the sea was warmer than the outside temperature so wasn’t very refreshing. Everyone flocks down to the beach at the weekend to watch the sunset, there was a lovely atmosphere, with tons of family’s all hanging out.

The main draw in KK is a few islands just off the coast, Tunku Abdul Rahman Marine park. For the next few days, we hopped on a boat, and did some snorkelling and beach bumming. The reefs are protected, but with the sheer amount of visitors that flock there, boats, pollution etc, the reef is pretty damaged. (I know we are part of the problem). However, we did see some lovely fish and some corals. Freda was amazing at snorkelling and Otto managed to do a little bit, both of them got to see clown fish, parrot fish and some great coral, which was very special.

The kids spotted a water park out there, so we decided to stay on another day to do that. It was a lot of fun, we were the only people there, it can have up to 150 odd people on the pontoon on a busy day, so we were pretty lucky. They had an activity called sea walking, like old school divers, where you put on a 37kg helmet which they pump oxygen into! I’ve done a bit of diving back in the day, which I loved, but this was quite weird. Mitch hated it, Freda loved it, she was so brave, as we stepped down in our flip flops to around 6 meters under the water with our funny helmets on.

As we’d been too busy bumming around we missed booking a flight and had to stay another day. We had an educational day and took the kids to visit a mosque. They were most unimpressed about having to wear muslim clothes. I love a bit of dressing up, it’s was a bit sweaty though!

We did manage to get night out in the town and unfortunately found a bar that did cocktails 2-4-1, turned out to be bad timing, as the next day was the water park day, and I felt rough! Sea walking and hangover, not the best combo!

Anyway, we finally got our act together and booked a flight across the country so we can go and check out Sabah’s main attractions, the Orang-utan’s and other cool animals. Unfortunately they have very little habitat left since it’s very rapidly being replaced with palm oil plantations, but we’ll see what we find!Read more