Kota Kinabalu is easy to underestimate. You step off the plane into a port city full of shopping malls and figure you will stay one night before moving on. Until your first evening, when you are standing by the water and the sun sinks behind the islands.
The best of KK is just outside the city. A 4,095 metre mountain two hours down the road, five islands off the coast, a river where the fireflies switch on after dark. In the city itself it comes down to two moments: the sunset, and whatever goes on the grill straight after.
So where do your days in Kota Kinabalu go, and what do you add if you have time left?
How to get there, where to sleep and how many days to give it is all on our Kota Kinabalu page.
Sunrise on the summit of Mount Kinabalu
This is why a lot of backpackers fly to Sabah, and rightly so. Over two days you climb to Low’s Peak, at 4,095 metres the highest point on Borneo. On the first day you hike four to six hours up to the Panalaban mountain huts at 3,272 metres. There you eat, sleep for a few hours, and at two in the morning you are back outside.
The last stretch is the most beautiful and the hardest at the same time. You walk over bare granite, in the dark, with a head torch and one hand on the rope. And then the sun comes up over the whole of Borneo, with the clouds below your feet.
It is not cheap: the park costs alone come to about €200, and a full package with transport starts at around €550. A guide is compulsory, and one guide takes a maximum of five adults. Around sunrise it can freeze up there, so a warm layer and gloves come with you, however hot it is down in the city.
Our verdict: the most expensive two days of your trip through Sabah, and the ones you will remember longest
Sunset on the waterfront
Every evening around half six the sun sinks straight down behind the islands of the marine park into the sea. The sky turns orange and then purple, and local families and fishermen line the promenade to watch it just like you. It costs nothing and there is nothing to organise.
Want the bigger picture? Take a Grab up Signal Hill. From up there you see the whole city, the sea and the islands in one view. Either way, get there half an hour early and watch the sky change colour step by step.
Plan it for your first evening. After that you know exactly when to head down, and you will find yourself walking that way again every night.
Our verdict: free, every evening, and just as good every time
Grilled fish at the night market
As soon as the sun is gone, the charcoal grills light up behind the Filipino Market. Fish, squid, prawns and chicken wings lie in long rows on ice. You point, they grill, and fifteen minutes later you are at a plastic table with a whole fish and a plate of rice.
A chicken wing costs from about €0.40 and a plate of fish with rice a few euros. With fish, always ask the price per kilo before it goes on the grill: that saves you a surprise at the end. Between the grills you find fruit and fresh juices, and at the market next door crafts and pearls.
This is ikan bakar the way it is meant to be, and as far as we are concerned the best place in town to eat well for not much.
Our verdict: go every evening, and order something different off the ice each time
Island hopping to Sapi and Manukan
Five islands sit just off the coast, together making up Tunku Abdul Rahman Park. From Jesselton Point you are on Sapi or Manukan, the best known two, in fifteen minutes, with white sand and coral you can swim out to straight from the beach.
The boat costs about €8 for one island and €2 for each island you add, plus about €5 in park fees. Take the first boat of the day: that way you have the beach to yourself for a while. Bring water and food from the city, because everything costs more on the islands.
If you snorkel, do not touch the coral or stand on it. And do not leave your stuff unattended when you go into the water.
Our verdict: the perfect rest day, especially after two days of climbing
Proboscis monkeys and fireflies on the Bongawan
South of Kota Kinabalu, the Bongawan River winds through the mangroves. You head out in the afternoon and spot proboscis monkeys and macaques in the trees along the bank. On the coast you watch the sunset, and once it gets dark the fireflies light up in the trees above the water.
Reckon on about eight hours, from the afternoon until after dark. Bring mosquito repellent and long sleeves for the evening, because in the mangroves you really need them after sunset.
Not heading on to Sandakan and the east coast? Then this is your chance to see proboscis monkeys. And even if you are, those little lights in the dark are an evening in their own right.
Our verdict: an afternoon that ends with a tree full of lights
Kundasang on the flank of the mountain
Two hours’ drive out of the heat of the coast and you step out into a different climate. Kundasang sits on the flank of Mount Kinabalu: cool air, vegetable fields, cows in the grass, and above it all the jagged granite summit of the mountain.
At Desa Dairy Farm you drink fresh milk and eat ice cream, for an entry fee of a few euros. The Kundasang War Memorial is in the same village, so the two combine easily.
Go in the morning. By the middle of the day the clouds often slide in front of the summit, and then the mountain you came for has disappeared.
Our verdict: the best view of Mount Kinabalu, without climbing a single step
Gaya Street Sunday Market
Every Sunday morning Gaya Street closes to traffic and turns into a market a kilometre long, with hundreds of stalls. Tropical fruit, local snacks, batik and sarongs, pineapple juice from the cart and fresh coffee from Tenom.
The market runs from about 6am to 1pm. Go early, before the heat and the crowds, and have breakfast at one of the kopitiams on the same street. For souvenirs, haggling is simply part of it.
In KK on a Sunday? Then you know exactly what you are doing that morning.
Our verdict: just right for a Sunday morning, early and hungry
Got time to spare in Kota Kinabalu?
Mari Mari Cultural Village
Just outside the city, Mari Mari has the traditional houses of five of Sabah’s peoples. You fire a blowpipe, see how fire is made without matches and eat a local lunch. With a guide you are out for about five hours, a nice half day between the city and the mountain.
A cooking class in the kitchen of Sabah
In three hours you learn to cook things you will not find on every corner in KK: hinava, raw fish cured in lime juice, and linopot, rice wrapped in a leaf. You are picked up in town, so there is nothing to sort out.
Breakfast in a kopitiam
During the day KK eats in the kopitiams on the old streets around Gaya Street. Order noodles and a teh tarik, the pulled tea with milk, and watch the street come to life around you.
Beer without the shock
Beer is expensive all over Malaysia because of the high excise duty, and in KK you pay around €3. The supermarket or a Chinese eatery is where you pay least.
Our top five in Kota Kinabalu
Only got a few days? Our five, from sea to summit:
- Sunrise on Low’s Peak, after a night at Panalaban
- The sun sinking behind the islands, from the promenade or Signal Hill
- A whole fish off the grill at the night market
- Island hopping to Sapi and Manukan on the first boat
- Proboscis monkeys and fireflies on the Bongawan
Time left after that? Drive to Kundasang in the morning for the view of the mountain, or start your Sunday with fruit and coffee on Gaya Street.
So what do you really have to do in Kota Kinabalu?
If you can make it happen: the mountain. Nothing in Sabah comes close to that last hour over the granite, with a head torch, a rope and a sunrise over the whole of Borneo. But the beds at Panalaban fill up months ahead, so this is a choice you make before you leave home, not once you are already there.
If the climb does not work out, KK is still a city of two fixed moments. Half six by the water for the sun, and half an hour later at a plastic table with fish off the grill. Do that every evening you are there.
And give the city one day on the water. The first boat to Sapi, a second island after it and back in the evening for the sunset: that is Kota Kinabalu in one day, at its very best.
