🇲🇾 Kundasang in Borneo ⛰️ Mount Kinabalu

We arrived in Kundasang on April 2, 2023, by bus from Kota Kinabalu. The journey took 2 hours. We crawled up the steep path from the town center to our accommodation with our backpacks: the Amazing Grace Lodge. We had a room with a private bathroom and a magnificent view of Mount Kinabalu, the highest mountain in Borneo. Well, when we arrived, the mountain was hidden behind clouds, so we could only admire it the next morning when it appeared in all its glory.🙂

We always had to go down to the town and back up to the accommodation to do shopping, which was about a kilometer uphill. At the market in the center, there are fruit and vegetable stalls every day, small supermarkets, and a local food market every afternoon/evening. We tried delicious and cheap food there, including rice, samosas, spring rolls, burgers, and fried bananas. We once tried to have food delivered to us using Grab, but our order was canceled three times in a row! Apparently, the drivers didn't want to travel 13 km from the neighboring town of Ranau 😅 (we can laugh about it now).

It was also complicated to find a bus to the Kinabalu Park, which was several kilometers away. No driver wanted to take us, and we couldn't order a Grab either. So, the only option left was to take a regional taxi for 30 Ringgit 🙄 However, the return trip was free because some locals were kind enough to give us a ride 🙏🏼 the universe is just being kind to us :)

The park isn't particularly large. If you don't plan to climb to the summit, you can hike some trails and reach viewpoints. The entrance fee is 50 RM per person. There were a few guided tours going on, but we went on our own. The rain didn't take long to arrive :) We walked to the botanical garden and then to a viewpoint. All paths are well signposted. Unfortunately, we couldn't see much of the mountain that day because there were too many rain clouds, and they were hanging very low. However, it was still fun, and we finally got a taste of the jungle feeling 🌳🥾

It was time to book our onward journey... but we were surprised to find out that we couldn't book a bus online anywhere. Neither in one direction nor the other. Now what?! By chance, we learned that we could stand at the bus stop in the town center at 7 in the morning and wait for a bus that takes a maximum of 8 people to Kota Kinabalu. We met Alfred from Graz and exchanged numbers. He was the one who gave us the information about the bus because he also took this bus to KK a day before us.

As planned, we didn't take the bus back but a minivan for 30 RM per person.

We had the impression that tourists mainly arrive by their own car and not like us, by bus. That's why it's also somewhat difficult to get from A to B in Kundasang. We were always the only tourists at the market, but the locals were super friendly and wanted to take pictures with us. 

We stayed for two more nights in a hostel in KK and then took the bus to Sandakan.