ten ₱esos

At 6 p.m. our Airbus was pushed back to taxi on Clark airfield. Soon thereafter we departed Philippines soil to fly to Malaysia. We had an uneventful, brief flight, arriving at Kota Kinabalu International Airport at 7:55 p.m. I walked briskly from the airstairs to the terminal then breezed through the ‘Imigresen’ checkpoint. Then I waited and waited and waited for Dominic, who had left row 8 of the airplane ahead of  me. I got our luggage from a carousel before he ambled away from an immigration booth!

I don’t know why Dom couldn’t leave the airplane before me, walk to the terminal before me, go through ‘imigresen’ before me, begin to retrieve his luggage before me …

I breezed through customs checkpoint. I wanted to exchange pesos for ringgit and ride a bus or taxi to the city to lodge in a hostel. I thought that Dominic would like to leave the airport to suck on cigarettes. But he was in no hurry. As usual, every airliner passenger and crew member had departed the terminal before us, and we were too late to get a bus to Kota Kinabalu city center. A lady at the ‘tourist information’ counter advised me to take a taxi.

We saw no taxis idling at a curb nor taxis arriving to drop people at the departures area. So we stood, waiting and looking. Eventually I saw the sign indicating ‘taxi waiting’ or something across the driveway, at another curb, where eight taxis were lined in the dark. I didn’t see any drivers, though — just a column of sedans in dim light beyond the sidewalk we stood on, the driveway and another sidewalk. The driver of the second taxi in line apparently saw me approach with luggage. I saw his reclined seat swing upright, then he opened his door to ask if I wanted a taxi ride.

When I affirmed that, he waved to the would-be driver of the first taxi in line who was somewhere distant. I guess that the drivers congregate to smoke and talk near the terminal rather than sit in their cars or drive to look for fares.

So the driver of the first taxi in the line opened his car, and we loaded our luggage. I told him that we wanted to go to Traveller’s Light Hostel, and we sped away in the evening rain. We had a fast, zig-zag, zig-zag ride on wet streets through Kota Kinabalu, past a clocktower and a police station to the rubber stamp-making and sign-making district of the city.

We paid 20 ringgit ($5.40) for a ten-minute ride. In Traveller’s Light Hostel we had to remove our shoes. I asked for the room rates, and the clerk said that only a private room is available, as the other rooms had been taken or reserved for guests who’d soon arrive. I asked if it had two beds. He said yes. So I filled-in a guest registration card, showed my passport, and we paid a discounted rate of 60 ringgit ($16.21) divided by the two of us .

We hauled our heavy luggage up slick, wood stairs while wearing socks ( potentially hazardous) the unlocked room 3. It contained a singe bed and a bunk bed )upper and lower beds). I took a shower out on the second-floor balcony then shaved while Dominic went out to find an internet cafe and rubber cement for his disintegrating shoes.

After a shower, rather than looking through downtown Kota Kinabalu in the darkness under a light rain, I spent time transferring heavy objects from luggage that would be checked-in by Air Asia on Wednesday morning to my carry-on luggage. I grouped all photographic equipment, computer, hard drives and other peripherals together. In the suitcase to check-in before flying to Pulau Penang, I stuffed clothes, a mosquito net, cans and bottles of insect repellant, sharp objects, a Pac-Safe net, a Pac-safe cable and x-ray films in a large envelope in the door/flap of the luggage.

Then I carefully walked downstairs to don shoes and go out to buy a bottle of water. I didn’t know then that I could have bought water in the lobby of the hostel. I bought water and returned in a few minutes. Back in room 3, I couldn’t fall asleep on a stiff foam-block ‘pillow’ while the Filipinos in the adjacent room made a ruckus for hours. Admonitions to be courteously quiet are posted throughout the hostel, including the bedroom doors, but the Filipinos couldn’t reach English or they didn’t care that other guests would like to sleep in bedrooms at night.

So they cheated me of two hours of sleep. I had heard one say that they had an early-morning flight, so I thought that they’d settle down sooner than they did. As I began to doze, around 12:30, Dominic reentered the room. So although I had been craving sleep for hours after sleeping only four hours Monday morning (my fault), I didn’t get to sleep until about 1 a.m.

I had hoped that I’d be deep asleep when the Filipinos departed “early in the morning.” But they woke us at 8 a.m. When they’d finished thrashing about and they left, I was able to resume sleep. But I didn’t sleep well that morning with the rattle and hum of a wall-mounted air conditioner and the too-stiff  ‘pillow.’

I arose at 9:30 and soon thereafter walked down to the lobby to get a breakfast of toast with butter and local fruit jam plus local “Sabah Tea.” Thus sated, I began walking the streets and sidewalks and waterfront of Kota Kinabalu to see the sights.

I made a lot of photos. I ate lunch in a Vietnamese restaurant. I enjoyed the time. I drank coconut juice in the morning and afternoon, and I drank watermelon juice at dinner. After dinner I took Dominic a large dining pavilion lined with multiple cafes and a thousand seats in the middle, because I wanted to show to him the live seafood in tanks at one restaurant near the entrance. It has huge lobsters, tiger prawns, common prawns, oysters, mussels of various types, huge grouper, red snapper, big-eye snapper, small sharks and more. Some large (35 pounds) fish were alone in some tanks.

We walked to Gaya Internet cafe to get online for about 50 minutes before returning to Traveller’s Light Hostel. I went to bed around 10:00 after setting two alarms for 4:45 and 4:54. I couldn’t get comfortable with the foam-block pillow, so I substituted a plush, synthetic-fleece pullover and a towel. Soon I was asleep.