I saw some pictures of Kota Kinabalu’s summit online, and fell in love with the cold, granite surface of the mountain. It looked beautiful! So on Sept. 2009, V, M, C and I took advantage of Cebu Pacific’s promotional fare and flew to KK to climb Mt. Kinabalu, the 20th tallest mountain in the world.
Our first night in KK was spent in comfort: Le Meridien Hotel in central KK. We wanted to be well rested for our climb up the mountain, and decided to splurge on pampered surroundings (pampered compared to where we were going to sleep the next night: in the resthouse in the mountain!).
I have to say there was nothing really different about this Le Meridien. It looked like a typical 4 star hotel. We met our guide, Joel Gabutan, in the lobby.
It also had the standard breakfast buffet, and well-turned out rooms.
For dinner that night, we asked to try some local fare. Joel brought us to the boardwalk, where there were open-air restaurants. I felt that it catered to tourists, as most of the restaurants had huge picture menus with English text.
It was very easy for tourists to decide what food they wanted, since the pictures were very descriptive.
We ordered laksa…..
black pepper crabs…..
and nasi lemak, which was fried rice wrapped in scrambled egg. Need to carbo load for tomorrow’s climb!
The Kat's Pajamas 