Kota Kinabalu to Lawas

The trip from KK to Lawas took me around 3-4 hours, the road condition throughout the journey was very good. The same can't be said about our car, the old Iswara was without air-condition.....so we sweat and sweat and sweat in hot and humid Sabah's weather! This must be my most torturous trip.....lost a bag then being ferried in a 'sauna'....haiiii!

Most of the houses along the road were on stilt, i was told in the older days the area was flooded so building a house on a stilt was the best way to avoid any problem. Now there was no flood....but people still build their house on stilt.......maybe they got used to climb the steps to enter their house!!!

Beaufort is town located right in the middle between KK and Lawas so i was really looking forward to see any landmarks or signs that we have reached the town. What a relief when i saw this roundabout.

There was nothing much can be said about Beaufort, it is a small town, its a stop over town, people travel from Lawas or Brunei to KK and return normally will stop at this town for a drink and a loo break! After Beaufort, the next small town would be Sipitang which is located mid way to Lawas.

Sipitang is even smaller than Beaufort. It is a coastal town, you can actually take speedboat from Sipitang to Labuan, Limbang and Brunei. When we reached here, i was like a roasted pig........given up complaining and missed my old waja at home!!

Dont bother to go to Sipitang police station if you are in town as they were away........

It was a roughly 1-2 hours drive from Sipitang to Lawas. If you are from peninsular or non Sabahan/Sarawakian, you need to stop at the border between Sabah and Sarawak for immigration clearance. I know you are a Malaysian but you are not Sabahan nor Sarawakian....so you need to get immigration clearance. Dont try to be smart aleck and skip the check point, you will have difficulty if you meet any problem in Sarawak or if you want to go to Brunei or Labuan from Lawas. The chekcpoint was at Sindumin, its on Sabah's side, so it means that you are exiting Sabah!

If you dont know, Lawas is in Sarawak. So to get to Lawas, we first exited Sabah then enter Sarawak, after a 5 minutes drive through another immigration checkpoint at Merapok. Get your passport stamped and Welcome to Sarawak!

It took less than an hour from Merapok to Lawas. When you see this then you are in Lawas!

Lawas Airport

p/s: The above was a brief info the route i took from KK to Lawas, if by any chance you are going there and need some info, dont hesitate to email me. I will write about Christmas in Lawas next....i hope!

Only in Kota Kinabalu

Before we left for Lawas, we made a stop in KK town for lunch, during my brief tour after my lunch, i saw many interesting characters and things that i believe can be seen only in KK. Don't agree? Check this out:

In my home town, if there is any directional signboard to a toilet, it will show either you need to take a left or right turn, but in KK, it even showed you how far...to the last meter! I really salute the officers who spent time to measure how many meters to the nearest toilet. So if you have an urgent 'business' to settle while in KK, you know how fast you need to run! If you can run as fast as Usain Bolt who holds the 100m world record at 9.69s......then you need less than 5 seconds to the below toilet.

I don't know about you but all the canteen food i had ever tasted were like.......hmmm...canteen food......tasteless, no ingredients except a lot of taugeh, pale looking.........not really those type of food you crave for lah. Anyway i noticed that in KK, the people there are so creative....they can make even canteen food to become fastfood!!!! So next time you are in KK......no Mcdonald, no KFC....go for 'The Canteen Fastfood'

If you always wanted to become an actor/actress but your budget don't allow you to be in Bollywood or Hollywood, not to worry, you can take cheap Airasia ticket to KK ( be prepared to lose your bag though) as you can try your luck in KK;

OK, if you are in KK but your bag is somewhere else thanks to Airasia, not to worry, look up for this lady, she surely can help you to do up your hair and make-ups. Sure cantik one!!!!

Jokes aside, Kota Kinabalu is really an interesting city, the people are really friendly! If you are planning for a holiday, do consider KK!

p/s: My friend, Ms. Tak-mau-kasi kept bugging me to write about my Lawas trip. So i will write about it lah in my next posting to please her.....and to keep her quiet..i hope!

Baggage oh Baggage!

On 21st December 2008, 4 of us took a 9.25am Airasia flight from Kuala Lumpur heading to Lawas via Kota Kinabalu. It is an annual affair for us to travel to Lawas to celebrate Christmas in Lawas with our Lunbawang relatives. I will talk about Lawas and Lunbawang in my later postings.

Despite the early scare that one of us could not find her IC during the check in, everything went well. We landed around 12.00 noon and after a smooth immigration check, we went to the Baggage Collection Area. There were many people waiting for their bags. I queued up at the carousel and collected 2 out of 3 bags, i waited and waited and waited the 3rd bag but it was not forthcoming. The number of people dwindled from 200-300 to 50 then to 10 then to me alone! Still i was there staring at the conveyor belt hoping for the stupid brown bag to appear!

Then i was approached by an Airsia ground crew, Kevin Kiang. He said there were a few more flights coming from KL and asked to me to see whether my brown bag was on the flights that were arriving soon, so, more waiting. Damn, i hate to wait but there i was .....waited....waited....waited until 2.00 pm. To cut the long story short, he told me that no point staring at the carousel as Santa wont be coming and deliver my brown bag! Damn! What a way to start a holiday!

He said there was good news and bad news......never knew there was good news when my bag not with me! Really felt like telling him how i felt at that point of time. The good news was it was very unlikely that my bag was taken/stolen by other passenger as he said my bag did not travel from KL to KK on the same flight. I asked how he knew it since Airasia they not tag or scan our luggage like Fedex does so that they can trace our luggage, he said he just knew it! Airasia must have telepathic training for their crews i think!

The bad news was he didn't know where in the world my brown bag was at that point of time! He promised he will trace it and revert to me soonest possible.

I think he saw the disappointment or more like anger on my face before he broke another 'good news' to me. if they can't trace my luggage in 7 days, Airasia will compensate me, RM 49.00 for every kilogram that i checked in. That means i will get.....9kg x RM 49.00 = RM 441.00. Wahlau.........RM 441.00????? My brown bag costs half of it, how about my brand new clothes......how about my brand new pants......how about my brand new underwears???? Who is going to pay for that?

Haiiii......... i was supposed to do some island hoppings like Preciouspea did but even my swimming trunk was in the brown bag......thanks to Airasia, we cancelled the itinerary in KK and headed straight to Lawas which took us around 3 hours drive from KK.

Will talk about the trip from KK to Lawas later!