Kota Kinabalu

Kota Kinabalu or KK as it affectionately known - Day 12 - 2 July 2016

Quick facts:

Population: Approx. 25 million

Currency: Ringgit

Capital: Kuala Lumpur

Country: Malaysia

Time Zone: GMT +8

On arrival into KK we were met by our private tour guide Pat from Equator Adventure Day Tours. Our tour was "The Sabah Cooking Tour and City Tour". We did the City Tour first as the traffic gets very busy later in the day. Our first stop was to see the Sabah State Mosque which is often referred to as the "Floating Mosque" which can accommodate 5,000 people and boasts golden domes.

We then drove up to Signal Hill for a bird's eye view of the city. Next it was to the Handicraft Market for souvenirs where I bought a pearl then onto the produce and fish market where we purchased fresh ingredients for our cooking class and lunch. The fish market was very busy with lots of fresh fish, prawns, crabs, sea cucumbers, sting rays, sharks etc. The produce market had lots of very fresh fruit and veggies which Pat said would all be sold out by the end of the day.

Armed with our ingredients we headed 21kms south to a small village called Kinarut and to Pat's mother's restaurant, Dsoka. We were warmly welcomed by Pat's mother Halimah, and her sister with a nice cool drink.

After cooling down and connecting to the free wifi we then had to start chopping and cooking our lunch.

After cooking we were rewarded with an eight course meal which was delicious…. my favourite being the butter prawns. Halimah is going to email some of the recipes to us so that should be fun when we get home.

After lunch with a very full tummy we headed back to the ship.

A fun time was had by all so I would class that tour as a success!

Sailaway was very enjoyable and the sunset spectacular.

Next port Hong Kong.