Hidden Gems of Sabah

BBooks intends to use this blog from time to time to highlight visitor attractions and activities in Sabah which don’t appear in the guide books because they are too new, or have simply been overlooked. At the same time we will correct mistakes which we find in the guides.

We will index these ‘Hidden Gems’ in one entry of the blog and cross refer in this index to the date of entry for each item so it can be easily located.

Since charity begins at home let us begin by pointing out that our big bookshop BB2 is itself indeed a hidden gem, in that the location is given wrongly in the hot-selling Lonely Planet guide ‘Borneo’, published in Jan08.

BB2 is not on the ground floor but the 2nd floor of the Wisma Merdeka shopping mall, directly above BB1 on the ground floor, but up 2 escalators. The confusion has arisen precisely because it is directly above. They show up on the town plan in ‘Borneo’ therefore as one dot, since it isn’t in 3Dm and the text entry has been edited to follow the map!

The list of Hidden Gems will include the following:

• Kundasang War Memorial
• ‘Taman Poket’ sea front outside the Hyatt in KK
• Tune Hotel, KK
• ‘Last Borneo Paradise’ homestay, Crocker Range
• The Butterfly Garden, Crocker Range
• Fish Landing & hawker stall at Sim-Sim Bridge no.8
• @Ease Hotel & Sandakan Harbour Square

.....and a steady stream of others. This will enable visitors to keep up to date with what is available and hopefully tempt even more visitors to come to Sabah. Mind you, keeping up with tourism development in Sabah is a challenge.

Harbour Square

Sandakan Kampong Sim Sim fish landing and eatery

Rainforest Discovery Centre, Sepilok

Motor bike trail riding from KK

Adywow’s music at the Kinabalu Daya Hotel, KK

‘Magic Mountain’ B&B, Mesilau, Mt Kinabalu

Mt Silam, Lahad Datu

Langkayan Island NE of Sandakan

Nearly all of these have been sampled by BBooks. Where not, we will say so. All will be based on recommendations.

Sabah is changing rapidly, usually to the visitor’s advantage. Sadly, in a few cases we will have to mention ‘Disappearing Gems’. Where appropriate, we will advise where you can write to make authorities aware of the loss.