Kota Kinabalu is a city further northeast from Mulu National Park. It is the capital of the Sabah state, the easternmost of Malaysia’s 13 states.
How to get to Kota Kinabalu from Mulu National Park
Since Mulu National Park is basically cut off by land from everything else, the only reasonable way to travel this route is by air. There are daily direct flights from Mulu to KK.
Kota Kinabalu
KK is a rather sleepy town without many attractions in itself. However, it is the main entry point into Sabah and is in close proximity to nearby Brunei. Located on the northern shore of Borneo, it has a thriving fishing industry, but its main industry remains the lucrative palm oil plantations.
Things to do in Kota Kinabalu
- Visit the open-air museums with replicas of traditional tribal houses. There are several in the area, and they offer a nice show and information about ancient—and partially still ongoing—tribal life in this region of Borneo. It makes for a nice 2-3 hour activity.
- Go scuba diving. Like in the neighboring countries, the rates are cheap. Visibility was not great when I went, but we saw some nice marine life nevertheless, the most exciting being a turtle and a very brief glimpse of a blacktip shark.
- Go for Mount Kinabalu. You can either do the multi-day trek to climb the mountain or a one-day trip to see it, along with some dairy farms, which are exciting for the people living here but maybe not so much for Europeans.
- Join a tour to see the proboscis monkeys. These shy monkeys live only in Borneo (unlike the orangutan, which can still also be found on Sumatra). These tours are overly expensive and very touristy. You might not see any proboscis monkeys at all, or just very briefly. The tour operators would rather spend half an hour with the tourists feeding bananas to the macaques (which you can find literally everywhere in Asia) and one hour watching fireflies after nightfall (which is exciting for, like, 5 minutes). I cannot recommend these tours at all unless you want mass-tourism entertainment like feeding macaques and eating in a large group in a C-class restaurant. I think the best way to actually see the monkeys is by looking for them in other places. Sandakan, further to the east, is the place where chances are apparently highest to spot them. Or, if you plan on visiting Brunei, there are also good chances to see them (much easier and without sacrificing a whole day).
- Visit Tanjung Aru Beach. This beach, about 2 km west of the center of KK, features some bars, a night market with tasty seafood, and a splendid sunset view.
Click on one of the pictures to open the Kota Kinabalu gallery :
