Three days in Kota Kinabalu: Borneo's least beautiful city, and one of its best

Two nights in Sabah's capital, with a day out on the marine park islands and seafood on the water every evening.

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Length
3 days, 2 nights
Where you stay
Kota Kinabalu
Places
8 across 3 days
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Nobody comes to Kota Kinabalu for the architecture. The British North Borneo Chartered Company founded it as Jesselton in 1899, the Second World War flattened it so completely that a handful of buildings survived, and what went up afterwards was concrete, fast and cheap.

Come anyway. Twenty minutes offshore there is a marine park of five islands with clear water and coral; two hours inland there is a 4,095 metre mountain; and along the front of the city there is a fish market where you point at what you want and a man cooks it while you sit down. The sunsets, over the South China Sea with the islands in silhouette, are the best in Malaysia and nobody argues about it.

Two nights is right for the city and its islands. If you want to climb Mount Kinabalu, add three days and book the permit months ahead, because the number issued each day is capped and it sells out.

Highlights

  • Five islands of clear water and coral, a fifteen minute speedboat from the town jetty
  • The floating mosque on Likas Bay, doubled by its own reflection in the late afternoon
  • Grilled tiger prawns and chilli clams at the waterfront market, chosen live from the ice
  • Signal Hill at six, when the whole coast goes orange
  • Gaya Street on a Sunday morning, closed to traffic and selling everything from orchids to puppies

Where to stay

Kota Kinabalu, two nights

Stay in the city centre between Gaya Street and the waterfront. It is unlovely and completely practical: the boat jetty, the night market, the seafood and the bars are all within a few hundred metres, and rooms are cheap.

The alternative is a resort on the Tanjung Aru or Karambunai strip, which is where the beaches and the prices are, and which puts you twenty minutes and a taxi fare from the jetty and the market. For two nights, stay in town.

Day by day

Day 1 in Kota Kinabalu

What survived the war, and the first sunset

Start with the small amount of old Kota Kinabalu that is left. The clock tower on the rise behind Gaya Street went up in 1905 for a district officer who died of malaria at 28, and it is the oldest thing standing in the city, because in 1945 the retreating Japanese and the advancing Allies between them destroyed almost everything else.

Then walk Gaya Street and the lanes off it, which are the closest thing KK has to an old quarter, and climb Signal Hill for the last hour of daylight. It is a fifteen minute walk up from the clock tower and the view runs from the container port round to the islands.

  1. 15:30

    Chinatown

    Other

    Two streets of Chinese shophouses and coffee shops behind the waterfront. On Sunday mornings the whole of Gaya Street closes for a market that sells orchids, blowpipes, honey and live animals.

  2. 16:45

    Atkinson Tower

    Historic

    A white wooden clock tower on a knoll, built in 1905 in memory of Francis Atkinson, the first district officer of what was then Jesselton. Five minutes to see, and worth it for what it represents.

  3. 17:30

    Signal Hill Observatory

    Visit

    The city viewpoint, reached by a steep path or a short Grab ride. Get there by half past five; the road up fills with cars in the last twenty minutes before sunset.

  4. 19:00

    Seafood at the waterfront market

    Eat

    Stalls with tanks and ice trays along the front from about six. Tiger prawns, clams in chilli, grilled fish and a plate of rice, and the whole thing for two people comes to less than a main course in Singapore.

With more time: The Sunday market takes over Gaya Street from six in the morning until one, and if your dates land on a Sunday it is worth reorganising the plan around it.

Day 2 in Kota Kinabalu

Out to the islands, back for the mosque

The marine park is close enough that you can see it from the hotel window, and getting there is a fifteen minute ride in an open speedboat. It was gazetted in 1974 and the water is genuinely clear: reef fish, soft coral and, on the quieter islands, a beach you can have largely to yourself before ten.

Come back mid afternoon and spend the end of the day at the mosque on Likas Bay. It is built out over a lagoon so that it sits in its own reflection, and the hour before sunset is the only time to see it properly. Robes are lent at the visitor entrance and there is a fee for non-Muslims.

  1. 08:00

    Tunku Abdul Rahman Marine Park

    Visit

    Boats from Jesselton Point from eight in the morning. Take a two-island ticket, do the quieter one first and the one with the food stalls second, and agree your return time with the boatman before you get off.

  2. 15:00

    Sabah State Museum

    Culture

    Built to echo a Rungus longhouse, with galleries on Sabah's thirty-odd indigenous groups, the ceramics trade and the Chartered Company years. The ethnographic floor is the strong one; allow ninety minutes and note it closes at five.

  3. 17:30

    Kota Kinabalu City Mosque

    Religious

    The white and blue mosque on Likas Bay, finished in 2000 and holding twelve thousand people. Go at half past five, walk to the far side of the lagoon, and wait for the light.

With more time: If the sea is rough and the boats are cancelled, Mari Mari Cultural Village inland is the standard wet-weather substitute: five reconstructed tribal houses, blowpipes and rice wine, and about half a day with the transfer.

Day 3 in Kota Kinabalu

A memorial, a beach, and the airport

Both of the last morning's stops are on the road to the airport, so this works whatever time you fly. The first is a memorial in a village south of the city to the Kinabalu Guerrillas, a local resistance group of Chinese, Kadazan, Suluk and Malay men who rose against the Japanese occupation in 1943. Most of them were executed here in January 1944 and the graves are in the garden.

The second is the city beach, a long strip of sand and casuarina trees five minutes from the runway, where people from KK come to swim in the morning and eat ice cream in the evening. It is not the best beach in Sabah and it is a decent last hour.

  1. 09:00

    Petagas War Memorial

    Historic

    A quiet memorial garden with a wall of names, about fifteen minutes from the centre by Grab. Free, rarely visited, and the clearest account of the occupation you will find in Sabah.

  2. 10:30

    Tanjung Aru Beach

    Nature

    Four kilometres of grey sand under casuarinas, ten minutes from the terminal. Coconut ice cream from the stalls at the far end, and a shower block if you want a last swim.

  3. 13:00

    To the airport

    Travel

    Terminal 1 is ten minutes from the beach and fifteen from the centre. Domestic flights want an hour, international two.

With more time: With longer, the Double Six Monument on the same road marks the 1976 air crash that killed Sabah's chief minister and half his cabinet, and the wetland centre north of the centre is a boardwalk through mangrove with kingfishers and mudskippers in it.

Before you go

Getting there and around

Kota Kinabalu International is six kilometres from the centre and Grab from it costs about 15 ringgit. There are direct flights from Kuala Lumpur, Singapore, Hong Kong, Seoul and several Chinese cities, and there is no useful land route from anywhere else in Malaysia.

The centre is a grid of about eight blocks and you can walk it. Grab covers everything else cheaply. Boats to the islands leave from Jesselton Point, which is a ten minute walk from most hotels; you buy the ticket, the terminal fee and the park fee at three separate counters, so allow twenty minutes.

The islands, and how to do them

The five islands of the marine park are Gaya, Sapi, Manukan, Mamutik and Sulug, in descending order of size and ascending order of quiet. Manukan and Sapi have the facilities and the crowds, Mamutik is smaller and calmer, Sulug has almost nothing on it, which is the point.

Buy a two-island or three-island hop rather than a single transfer and go on the first boat at eight. By eleven the day-trip crowd from the resorts has landed. Bring your own snorkel if you have one; the rental gear is tired.

Eating

Seafood is the reason to eat out here and it is cheaper than anywhere else in Malaysia. The waterfront market runs in the evening: pick your fish, prawns or clams from the ice, agree the weight and the price before it is cooked, and choose between grilled, steamed with garlic or fried with chilli.

For breakfast, Sabah's own dish is tuaran mee, a springy egg noodle fried with pork and egg, and the Chinese coffee shops on Gaya Street all do it. Beaufort mee, wetter and smokier, is the other one worth asking for.

Weather and timing

The drier months are March to September and the wettest are October to January, when afternoon storms are heavy enough to cancel boats. Island trips are the thing weather actually affects here, so if the forecast is bad, do the islands on your first clear morning rather than the day you planned.

Sabah keeps the same clock as the rest of Malaysia but sits far to the east, so it gets light before six and dark by half past six all year.

KK is a working port city that happens to sit in front of a marine park, under a mountain, facing west. It has almost no old buildings and almost no pretension, and the pleasure of it is entirely in what happens outdoors: a boat at eight in the morning, a fish market at seven at night, and the twenty minutes in between when the sky goes the colour of the prawns.

Two nights, and then either go up the mountain or fly across to Sarawak.

Or make it a longer trip

These trips pass through here on the way somewhere else.

Make it your trip

Every stop, day and place here lands in your account as an editable trip. Move the days around, swap a city, add your own bookings and costs, and share it with whoever is coming.

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Common questions

How many days do you need in Kota Kinabalu?
Two nights covers the city and one full day on the islands, which is what most people want. Add three more if you intend to climb Mount Kinabalu, or two if you want to go up to Sepilok and the Kinabatangan river for orangutans and proboscis monkeys, which are a flight or a long drive away on the east coast.
Can I climb Mount Kinabalu on a short trip?
Not without planning. The mountain is 4,095 metres, the climb is two days with a night in a hut at 3,300 metres, and the number of permits issued daily is capped. Book several months ahead through a licensed operator; there is no way to turn up and go.
Which island should I go to?
Manukan has the best facilities and the most people, Sapi has the best snorkelling straight off the beach, Mamutik is small and quiet, and Sulug has almost nothing, which some people prefer. A two-island hop lets you decide when you are out there.
Is Kota Kinabalu worth visiting?
As a city, it is functional and not much more. As a base, it is excellent: islands within sight, a mountain two hours away, some of the cheapest good seafood in Asia, and sunsets that people genuinely stop and watch. Judge it on what it gives you access to.
Is it easy to combine with Kuching?
Yes. Flights across Borneo take about an hour and a half and are frequent, and Kuching is the opposite kind of place: older, prettier, and built around a river rather than a sea front. A week covering both is the standard Borneo trip. Copy this into the planner and add the Sarawak leg.