Initially I wanted to climb mount Kota Kinabalu but I was really disappointed with the differentiated foreign tourists pricing. The foreigners were charged almost twice the amount compared to the locals. I hate this kind of pricing differentiation if I am visiting any country. There is no way you can promote tourism by differentiating the pricing to such an extent. I don’t think it is worth paying unnecessarily two times the local rate for a mountain which is just 4000 m tall. I decided to visit only the Kota Kinabalu National park as a day tour.
Our guide picked up from the hotel around 8 am. We had long 2 hours journey to the national park. After 1 hour ride we were able to see the first glimpse of the mountain. Top of the mountain was covered with thick layer of cloud.
Our first stop of Kota Kinabalu national park was Kota Kinabalu botanical garden. The garden feature some of the most unique plant species found in entire world. Almost 90% of the plant species in the garden were used for medicinal purpose. We had a tour of the botanical garden for about 1 hour and our guide explained medicinal uses of different plants.
Our next stop was poring hot spring. I was not keen to go for hot spring so skipped this part. I had to wait at the stop for almost 2 hours. I wanted to see Raflesia flower for very long time because this is the biggest flower in the world. I asked my guide if there is a place where I can see the Raflesia flower. My guide pointed me to a store and after some time a guy with a motorbike picked me up. After 10 minutes ride I finally reach the garden where there was a Raflesia bloom. The flower was huge and it was blood red in color.
Thank god I didn’t have to wait almost 2 hours without doing anything at the hot spring. Our next stop was canopy walk. We had to hike almost 20 minutes inside a dense forest with huge trees in order to reach canopy walk. The canopy walk was almost 30 m above the ground. There were lots of canopy walk sections and each section had a rough length of 100 m. After the canopy walk we started our journey back to Kota Kinabalu city. We stopped at another destination with a great view of Kota Kinabalu mountain.
Seafood – The seafood market is located near the Pusat Bandar area. The place was 15 minute walk from my hotel. There were lots of other hotels located near this area. This was a good place to stay at Kota Kinabalu. All the restaurant had a big aquarium from which you can choose the seafood. The price was very reasonable at the restaurant. Most of the restaurant were very crowded with local Malay tourists. The food felt more delicious after the long hike and the canopy walk.
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