My Kudat days: Water shortage!!! (I’m still here… in Kudat…)

Water shortage!!!

On our 2^nd week stay in Sikuati, we experienced the two of the most dreaded situations, water shortage and rainy season. Sounds ironic, doesn’t it? Lemme explain…

As the intro goes, the water supply to Sikuati and Kudat comes from Kota Marudu, the neighbouring district through some complicated underground pipe system. When it rains heavily, the water pressure in these pipes increases which makes them prone to bursting so during the rainy season the pipes are usually shut off which in turn shut off the water supply to Sikuati and Kudat.

So during the season where there should be abundance of water, we have water shortage instead.

And crappy food. Since our water supply would be provided from the rain water collection from Surabaya restaurant, our landlord (plus we couldn’t cook) so in return for their kindness, we have to eat at least once there where they served the saltiest, most oily food ever (I take back some of my praises…). To make it worse, their cutleries and wares were so oily that the drinks served were often contaminated from the oily cups, glasses and spoons. God bless us, no one suffered from the dreaded diarrhea which was another dreaded situation during water shortage. We also thank God for Singgah Rasa, another Malay restaurant nearby which served better fares and had clean wares.

For nearly 2 weeks we suffered and bear, living with each shower using only 2 large bottles of mineral water equivalent to 3 liters before we found one company that sold water (for RM40 they would fill up the main conservation tank). Another irony to this is that as soon as we filled our tank with the murky brown water of unknown origin, the water supply was resumed on the next day. But for safety measure, the bus during the weekly returns to UMS was always loaded with empty bottles to be re – filled with fresh, clean water.