Once a month, Nico get one Saturday off which give us an opportunity to discover Sabah beyond KK. So our first trip outside Kota Kinabalu was Kudat, 3 hours long drive through Tuaran, Kota Belud and Kota Marudu. Road heading to Kudat was quite good with some small repairing here and there along the way but it was completely dark if you travel at night like us.
We stayed at Kudat Golf and Marina Resort near to Kudat town, which is old and served horrible breakfast. Since we left on friday evening we got 2 full days to enjoy Kudat, 2 days is more than enough since there's nothing much you can do in Kudat after all.
After eating horrible breakfast, we drove to Tip of Borneo at Tanjung Simpang Mengayau which is around 23km from Kudat Town. This is where the end of Borneo land on the northern side of Sabah. It was hot when we arrived and the view was amazing and not so many tourist was around.
I believe that you are not supposed to go down but Nico saw people doing it and he want to check what's down there too. Its slippery of course and Nico end up fall and cut his finger.
After tip of borneo, we make a stop at Tanjung Simpang Mengayau (if im not mistaken) beach, (stretch of beach on your left side on the way to tip of Borneo) to eat our packed lunch and swim. It was afternoon and hot but we had a good time. It was white sandy beach with crystal clear water and surprisingly clean, i mean, really clean. We don't even feel those sticky, sweaty feeling after swimming in the sea at this beach, thats how clean it is if you ask me.
Since it was early in the afternoon and not so many people around, we have the entire beach for ourselves accompanied by few hungry dogs who steal our white bread. But seeing how hungry they are, we are more than happy to share our food. :)
(thats my Brad Pitt...loooolllll)
(very clear and clean water)
We decided that its going to be a beach day seeing how good it is after Tanjung Simpang Mengayau. So we drove along the coastline, follow some signage which we didn't know what and we found Kelambu Beach.
So, whats special about this secluded beach? It has a white sandy beach which stretched out to an island, left side of the beach come with calmer water since there's no waves and the right side with waves. Its not deep and perfect for family and swim. Be careful with jelly fish since we found few but other than that Kelambu beach is a nice place to spend an afternoon.
(Kelambu Beach)
(At the small island)
(the calmer side)
Since Kudat is a small town, there's nothing much we can do here in the evening except eating seafood at Esplanade Sidek. There are few big and small restaurant here which served seafood but by the time we went there at 8pm almost all shop out of seafood. We thought seafood in KK already cheap but surprisingly Kudat are so much cheaper.
(Squid)
(Tiger Prawn)
We ordered half kg of tiger prawn, one plate of squid, one medium size crab, one plate of veggie, 2 rice and 2 soft drinks for RM61. Thats how cheap it is. :)
We checkout after breakfast since Rungus Longhouse, Bee Farm and Gong Factory are on our way back home and its quite far from Kudat town. Its easy to go to these places since you can easily see the signage from the road side.
Our first stop was Rungus Longhouse. We actually wanted to stay here but we couldn't reach their agent number. Price was RM55 per pax (if im not mistaken of cos)(for malaysian) and RM85 for non Malaysian.But no need to freak out, they have mosquito net and modern toilet for your stay :) They can be contacted at +60135527191, Mr Angkung. We plan to go back to Rungus Longhouse and stay there when Nico parents visit us end of this year since its going to be priceless experienced for us and also for them.
We then proceed to Gong Factory, which is actually a stretch of road in a village which everybody do gong. We were initially looking for a factory and only notice that all the smalls shop we saw along the way was actually the factory. It was Sunday and we've been told that people not working but the shop still open. Only one shop actually working and the noises of clashing metal echo the entire village, i guess it will be funny if we were there when everybody working. It will be one noisy village. :) I wanted to buy small gong to decor our third room wall but my hubby want a big one, so in the end we get a big one for RM100. Nico's mom love gong, i wonder if shes going to buy all if she sees all these :)
(entrance fee to the village)
Our last stop was Honey Bee farm. Here they do it traditional way. Equipped with smoked, no safety suit and they lead us to see a box full with honey bee. It was scary since most of us tourist wear shorts but thankfully no one get bitten. The most amazing thing about this honey bee farm experienced was, we get a chance to eat honey right from the wax. She cut the wax that she just smoked into small pieces, told us to eat it like chewing gum, just suck in all the sweets and throw the wax. Most of us hesitate to do it at first thinking that we heard it wrong but then we all try it and it was owh-so-sweet and taste heavenly good. Of course we purchase one bottle from them afterwards but we bought the wild bee honey.
(we suck the honey from the white part)
All in all, it was a good trip to discover other part of Sabah which of course so much different from west Malaysia. Next entry will be about our back to nature trip in Sandakan. :)
