Kota Kinabalu (KK) - 6 & 7 Dec

Our apart-hotel in KK was much larger than our apartment in Paris, but space isn't everything ! Even the air con didn't quite manage to cover an unplesant mouldy smell but we still had a good night sleep until 10:30 am when we were ready to hit the town. KK is a city under construction with old crummy parts and brand new buildings mushrooming all over; the pict below summarize the situation quite well.

We organised our next few days with the very helpful lady of the Information Center; an then had a real tourists day with the museum, the market and the waterfront on the menu.

Next morning, on the 7th, we set off quite early to go to one of the islands off KK: Mamutik. Looks like paradise on the pictures below but the tiny island was covered with tighly packed tables & chairs for a hord of Chinese tourists. Luckily they didn't venture much further than a few meters from the shore, wearing their life jackets (quite a sight), so we were able to do a bit of good snorkeling and sunbathing despite the density of population :-) Benoit also had a play with his sunnies to get those amazing sea colour effects while we hold the moutains, in turn.

By 16:45 we were in a reasonnably priced taxi to Ranau, our next stop for the next couple of nights.