How to survive in Sabah, Malaysia

Hi, welcome back to my blog. I still living in Sabah, East Malaysia. It’s a quiet old city with great local wisdom building creatures. Surrounded by the Borneo jungle and Kampung-kampung of Kedayazandusun’s houses.

Besides that, we easily find another group of people, like Chinese and Melayu. In Kota Kinabalu, every group makes their own a space of living complex, completed with shops, restaurant, temple, playground, and other facilities.

Let’s go to the basic needed supplies. A grocery shopping spree would be fun by visiting the nearest convenience store, like 99 speedy marts, pick n pay, CKS, Bataras, etc. The price range is almost the same, but their grocery stock may be different. I would love to buy fresh vegetables and fruit at pick and pay, CKS, or Bataras. In other condition, I would love to go to 99 speedy mart for housing monthly supplies, like tissues, soap, etc.

When I arrived here, I had booked a room for rent. It’s near my clinic and fully equipped and with good furniture inside. The type of room I rent is sharing houses. It’s located in a Chinese residential building. So, it’s quite hard to find a halal restaurant. For my advice, just cook your own food to make sure it’s safe / halal hehe.

Other information like transportation, cruising around Kota Kinabalu could be accommodated by online taxi, bus, or motorcycle. Get to know first, every online transport is only provided by car. So, you will find grab, maxim, and air asia on the Appstore, and they would pick you with kind most of sedan car. Some clean and good maintenance, some not satisfied lah.  The range price of the tariff is still affordable and reasonable in normal condition, but it will getting pricy (high fare) in busy traffic/ jammed situations.

 If only you want to walk in the surrounding area, it’s so much better to find the right pedestrian and good route. People drive fast without hesitation, not others. Just mind your own safety first.

Do you want to change your mobile with the local provider? I have some suggestion: for strong connection in rural area prefer use celcom, for fast internet use celcom digi, for affordable package use maxis. I use celcom digi because my assistant just drove me there before. And it's not that bad lah.

These are all from my personal experiences of living abroad in Sabah, East Malaysia. I hope it will be useful!