A day on Gaya Street (01): trinkets and the likes

The weekend shopping haven on the infamous Gaya Street starts as early as 6 am on every Sunday. So every Sunday, the whole length of Gaya street will be closed down to traffic so park your car somewhere on Saturday night. Jesselton Hotel has a parking space behind its building for the guests.

As we downed our breakfast at the dining area, we watched the bustle of vendors from all over Sabah setting up their tents and stuffs for the growing number of shoppers. I was pretty excited myself since Gaya streets "tamu" (@market) has never disappoint me with the wide variety of trinkets and the likes, with a dash of surprises thrown in here and there.




I think many blogs and sites have covered on Gaya street topic suffice to inform everybody on what are the main attractions offered. For me, it's always cute animals, lots and lots of batik Jawa, flowers and plants, and the amusement of finding something out of ordinary.

Like this. I never knew that butterfly pins are in the season now but here they are, colourful and wings - splayed to don your scarves and head dress. Take your pick and the vendor will pack them into the polystyrene lunch boxes.


They sell common everyday tools too.


Once in a while, these aunties will bang some folk tunes out of these ethnic instruments as part of their sale strategies.


The gongs and gendang, and some traditional weapons (Keris, held by this lady and uncle.)


So many chaplang (fake) branded goods at unbelievably cheap prices.


Shells and corals from the deep sea.


Coins and pottery. Selling money for money.


To my next post ^_^

Indonesian food: Eating brain at Nasi Padang Ibu

Status: Halal
Location: Jesselton Point, Kota Kinabalu.

I haven't been going to Jesselton Point that often to notice that this place has an Indonesian food restaurant. I guess all those time I was more focused on the hunks playing futsal in the Suria futsat indoor field LOL

So anyway, here I am at Jesselton point. To eat.

The place has changed a lot during my 5 years stay. 4 years ago there's only the jetty there for those who wish to visit Sabah's popular 3 islands (Manukan, Sapi and Mamutik) or to take the ferry to Labuan. Now there is a futsal indoor field and many eateries to entertain the visitors while waiting for their boats.




And so, here is the place, viewed from outside. Nasi Padang Ibu. A rare grade A eatery in Kota Kinabalu city. I didn't take take the photo centrally because I also wanted to take in the cute London - like phone booth LOL



The main highlight of my lunch that day was... Gulai otak. Brain. Cow brain. Seriously.

It looked like any normal gulai, in fact at first I thought it's plain normal chicken until the waitress told me otherwise. So out of curiosity, I ordered it.

Can you see it? I spread it out as best as I can to get a clear shot of the sulci, gyri, grey and white matter. Taste... creamy. Texture... like cream caramel. A Kelantanese would love this. But very high content of cholestrol.

And of course, the other dishes with the steamed rice. Last row from left: gulai otak (brain), sambal terung (brinjal), sambal bilis and tempe (anchovy and soy bean). Middle row from left: sambal paru (cow lung), gulai sotong (squid). Front row from left: a different kind of sambal terung (steamed brinjal), ayam kampung goreng (chicken, steamed then deep-fried) and dendeng (beef, roasted then braised)

Overall, the food was tasty. The ice kacang was a treat on such a hot day. They have a wide range of dishes, exceedinf 30 types for you to choose from and the prices are reasonable. An extra "umph" was the bag of keropok belinjau on each of their table to be eaten with the sambal belacan dip or on its own. For all these, we were chrged RM70+ inclusive of drinks and taxes.

Service was good, and the place separated the smokers and non - smokers. Come here if you are looking for good Indonesian food.



Rating: 4/5

Sabah: that lump on the doggy’s head.

Continuing from my previous post, where in the end we did made a turn to Kuala Penyu at that fateful round-a-bout.

No offense, but when you look at the map of Sabah, there is this small lump on the back of the doggy’s head of Sabah where Klias and Kuala Penyu are located.

We were looking for this resort, Tempurung Seaside Lodge located in somewhere deep within Tempurong Village. Deep within indeed.

The road that I traveled by 4 years ago had not changed much, still gravels and dust. No street lights either, so the nights would still be naturally dark, everyday is an Earth Day. Same old, same old. Preservation of nature, very good.

No direction, nothing at all. We reached this small pathetic signboard with the help of a passing villager.


And so I present you, the Lodge.



The amazing view from the lobby balcony.


It's too remote for our taste, so we decided to return to Kota Kinabalu city.

The turtles we passed by as we left Kuala Penyu.

There's little daylight left as we passed Klias and we were dead tired from the day adventure so no one ventured for the river cruises.

The sunset on the way to Kota Kinabalu. Putatan road.

Until next time.


If you like, you can look at some older pictures of Kg Tempurong in my previous post Old collection... Kg. Tempurong, Kuala Penyu, Sabah.

Sabah: The journey down the back of a doggy’s head.

Note: while writing this, I’m already in Peninsula myself. Just a recap of my last few days in Sabah =)

It’s a standing joke that the map of Sabah resembles that of a doggy head. And so, with the arrivals of my 2 pals from Peninsula kick-started a crazy journey where we almost reached Brunei. Almost, as in... Well, almost.

We stayed the night in Jesselton Hotel, along the infamous Gaya Street in the heart of the city, a charming 4 star city hotel where the maids still don the frilly black and white maid uniform and carry bells. (Online reservation / booking available)




The trip started peacefully enough, we passed Putatan and Papar. Our route originally was that to Kuala Penyu where you’d pass Klias on the way, popular for all those river cruises and sightseeing. After Papar was Bongawan district, where we just cruise around its small main town which resembles Tumpat (Kelantan) in the older days.

Bongawan town.

Klinik Kesihatan Bongawan, Bongawan town.

And so we moved on to our planned journey. Except that along the way after Membakut, 500 metre before approaching the fateful round-a-bout of Beaufort and Kuala Penyu, my pals decided to head straight off to Beaufort instead of the 3 o’clock turn. And so here we are in Beaufort district.

The mangosteens on Beaufort round-a-bout.

Sago and beras bukit (rice planted on the hill terraces) at Beaufort market. The interesting thing with this rice is that when you mix a cup with your plain white rice, it’ll tint your rice pink and gives it a thicker texture, almost like pulut.

Huge pomelo in Beaufort market.

After a while, we left Beaufort through this rustic metal bridge which seems to be all over Sabah.


To reach Sipitang. A town by the sea, hot and breezy.



Then straight to Sarawak border after Sindumin. Here the immigration will stamp passports or pass out temporary passes to visitors to entitle you a 3 months stay within this Bumi Kenyalang.


Another metal bridge to cross to go for Lawas. A one way bridge where you wait for the approaching cars to pass before you go forward.

Sungai Lawas, Sarawak. Viewed from the bridge.

Then you take a ferry to cross the “terusan” (manmade river in Malay) to Trusan, which cost us RM10 for a distance less than 100 metre and a journey lasting less than 5 minutes.

And so here we were, the border of Brunei where my pals announced that they didn’t have their passports with them and can we just apply for temporary passes here like at the Sarawak border? The answer was no, we should have done that a few days earlier at the Bangunan Persekutuan next to UMS.


And so our pack made our way back into Sabah...

Then I found this...

I forgot where this was but this was the most detailed signboard that I’ve ever seen. The distances of each place were given in point form.

Seafood: New Gaya Seafood Restaurant

Status: Serve No Pork
Address: Inanam


I was driving at night so I really couldn’t recall the roads very well. So rather than misguiding everyone, I rather not describe it then. It’s somewhere in Inanam, near a housing area and always fully packed. My memory is a bit fuzzy, though I only went there like a week ago before departing from Sabah.

Since I was about to leave Sabah in few days time, we decided to go on a spree and indulge in seafood at this place because as compared to other places, their price is the most affordable. For what we ate below, we were charged only RM155.




The soft shell crabs are very popular, we learnt this when we came for the first time and were told that the place ran out of stock due to high demands, especially on weekend. So a friend of mine pre – ordered the crabs earlier before we came in this time. They were fried crunchy to be relished for every single bite till nothing is left! Nothing wasted and hassle – free, literally since you consumed the shells together with the flesh. RM28 for half kg.

Soft shell crabs in batter, deep fried.

Scallop was the expensive part of our meal. RM35 for half kg or less. They cooked it with celery which was a good combination.


My favourite, fish teo chiew style (did I spell that correctly?). RM20+ for this tilapia. The thing I like about this fish is the salty - sour taste and of course, the tofu =)


Prawns! Half kg for RM25 I think, fried in oatmeal batter. Yummy!


The tom yum soup for 5 is surprisingly cheap, only RM12 for the savoury large bowlful and generous ingredients.

They served the rice in bowls, I got a plate since I requested for fork and spoon, not wanting to risk dropping my precious prawns and crabs.


And our vege, simple pak choi stir – fry with garlic. But it cost us RM10.

Overall, I think this place is pretty good. Fresh seafood, decent price and good service. Waiting time can be quite long on weekends and the place is usually packed by 6 pm on those days.



Rating: 3.5/5