As I found myself at a Malaysian restaurant a few days earlier watching who looked to be “Ghost” from the tv show Power, aka Omari Hardwick in the movie Shot Caller, I was trying to get a grasp on what this city was in reference to previous places I had been. Today was my last day in Kota Kinabalu. Upon my arrival to KK, it got off to a rocky start when the tour I booked for the Probiscus Monkeys & Fireflies had to be rescheduled to two days later from Friday to Sunday since the travel agency driver forgot to pick me up. Again, I did break my rule of pre-booking tours online be it with Klook, a booking website that I am using for the 1st time for several of my tours during my vacation but this was an unfortunate start.
In case you are wondering, I did go on my rescheduled tour yesterday as promised by the travel agency and Klook. But it is hard to sum up in words what the city of Kota Kinabalu is or is not. During my stay, I always felt safe. Never heard or saw of any crime. The taxi drivers and street market sellers were never too pushy. And the city seems to never sleep as there are many 24hr restaurants and I could hear what I think was karaoke until the wee hours of the morning which surprising was not annoying. And it seems the people here in which the majority are devoted to Islam while the rest are affiliated to other religions (Christianity, Buddism, etc), they or should I say the people of KK get along in a “Kuum Ba Yah” type of way.
The city gets a variety of tourists everyday although I did not meet anyone from the United States nor not a single person that looked like me here. If you know me, you know what I mean when I say that statement. But to be brief, the island of Borneo is still not well known outside of SE Asia as this island contains many rare and exotic animals such as Proboscis monkeys and Tarsiers ( a Gremlin looking animal for my older heads out there). Heck who am I kidding, I never heard of this place until I saw it on the National Geographic Explorer channel a few months ago.
To wrap up, I can see this place becoming a more popular international destination with more marketing behind it since it already contains the necessary infrastructure.