Malaysian Borneo
Sabah aka Land Below the Wind
Jalan Chester
Hotel Grace@Chester +6089751155 grace_chester_hotel@yahoo.com
Clean and spacious twin room, with air-con and wifi, for MYR 60.- or US$ 20.10 per night.
Click below for an interactive road map of Hotel Grace@Chester in Tawau, which we would recommend, and for directions:Exploring the rugged, predominantly Malaysian Chinese frontier town Tawau (clearly visible: wide choice of booze and very little police presence) which boomed in the early 1980s because of its lumber and cocoa farming industry and has become a bustling transit hub to all neighbouring islands, waiting for the scheduled departure day of the next Pelni ferry from "round-the-corner" Nunukan/Kalimantan to Pantoloan/Sulawesi and whiling the time away with orgies of fresh fish and seafood delicacies at the exceptional Kam Ling Seafood Restaurant +6089756457; our favourite dishes: (i) grilled snapper with mango, fresh ginger and Chinese cabbage aka bok choy, (ii) cooked clams/cockles with plenty of garlic and young spring onions, (iii) braised sea cucumbers with a variety of cooked Sabahan veggies.
Joining the local border traffic thus crossing the invisible maritime border between Malaysia’s hot and damp Borneo and Indonesia’s hot and damp Kalimantan as tourist-class passengers of MV “Labuan Express Lima”, a daily high-speed ferry (top speed: 28 knots, 75 min between departure and arrival, MYR 60.- or US$ 20.- plus MYR 5.- departure tax per person) between Tawau and Nunukan (Tunon Taka Port), a busy Indonesian border town, located on the northern shore of Pulau Nunukan Timur and attached to Tawau by an informal economical umbilical cord, and, on arrival, changing uneventfully our Malaysian ringgit into Indonesian rupiah (exchange rate: MYR 1 = INR 2,800) with one of the loitering self-appointed money changers; selamat siang, Indonesia, one of the most evocative countries on earth.
Click below for more blog posts about yummy seafood
07 Jun - 10 Jun 2013 Sokcho
29 Nov - 31 Dec 2011 Kuah
30 Jun - 13 Jul 2011 Kota Kinabalu
01 Mar - 01 May 2010 Bangkok
13 Sep - 14 Sep 2009 Miri
Click below for a summary of this year's travels
