Travelogue: Sabah – Day 4

25 September 2015

Labuan

We traveled a bit far on our fourth day in Sabah. We went to Labuan, the home of duty free and cheap chocolates! Eh? Hahaha. I am so excited going there because I have never been there in my whole life. I once got an offer to pursue my study at Labuan Matriculation College for a two years program, but my parents prefer that I continue with foundation of engineering technology (FET) at Kedah Matriculation College. Okay, enough about schools.

It takes almost 2 hours’ drive from our apartment to Menumbok where we’ll be taking a speed boat or ferry to Labuan. Yes dears, you have two choices. Ferry; where you can bring your own car to Labuan and it takes 3 hours to reach Labuan from the jetty. Or, you can get in a speed boat; of course you can’t bring your own car using a speed boat, but if you are in need to save some time or in a rush, speed boat is a great choice. It takes only 30 minutes from jetty to Labuan.

On our way to Menumbok

We chose to ride a speed boat instead of ferry. First, it’s because our trip to Labuan is just a day trip so we need reduce time to go there and more time to explore Labuan (still, we didn’t get to go to many places though). Second, just because we wanted to experience travelling by using a speed boat.

Around the Menumbok ferry terminal

Yellow boat, it's our speed boat ;)

Once we arrived Labuan, we rent another car to travel around Labuan. I told you guys before that there are almost no car rental services offered their cars for hours or half day, right? It took us almost half an hour to coax one of the car rental service at the entrance of the Labuan jetty to rent us the car for only half day. So, we are paying RM100/half day instead of RM180/day. If it was just me alone going to Labuan at that time, I won’t bother to pay that much money. I would rather rent a bicycle to tour around Labuan. It’s much cheaper and you can exercise too! Hehe.

Excited just by seeing the word 'Labuan'

Bicycle rental services available at Labuan jetty

It is almost noon, and it is Friday. We encountered quite a bad traffic jam, we are losing our time there. We managed to fill up our hungry tummy first at one of the restaurant there, before going to Chimney Museum.

Chimney Museum

Entrance fee: Free

Opening hours: Daily; 9.00 am to 6.00 pm

Here’s where the history of the first chimney in Malaysia are located. From the materials to build a chimney to the very first design of chimney, you can found all of them here. It’s quite a good tour since you can learn a lot by touring the museum. I took some pictures of the good information since I’m not really in a mood to read it one by one there.

Chimney Museum; entrance

Trying to jump beside the huge chimney

Outside of the museum, there is one huge chimney were built. We went around to take some pictures for a while before rushing to the nearest Mosque for my father and my brother to perform their Friday prayer. While, for us women, we went to the shopping mall not far from the Mosque, so it is easy for us to pick them after the prayer.

We don’t really have much time, so we were just looking around the shops inside the mall while buying some chocolate. Yes, having some chocolate is a must for us. Furthermore, one of the reason we’re going to Labuan is because of chocolates.

It’s almost 2 when we arrived at the Mosque to pick up the gentlemen. Since we are running out of time before going back to Menumbok, we were just driving around Labuan without stopping anywhere. I didn’t even get to see Labuan Matriculation College with my own two eyes huhuhu. Then, we went back to the jetty to shop for more chocolates before taking another ride of speed boat to Menumbok.

I would like to advice you people to spend at least one night at Labuan, so that you can enjoy more time to go around Labuan.

We finally reached Kota Kinabalu at night, around 7pm. It was our last night at Sabah, so we decided to go to One Borneo mall to have our dinner there and to jalan-jalan. Nothing much to do there. Our first plan was to watch a movie. But, we are all tired due to the long journey back and forth Labuan and we haven’t pack our belongings, so we headed straight to the apartment after buying some snacks for supper.

Favorite snacks 

I saw Universiti Malaysia Sabah (UMS) on the way back. So, that concluded my fourth day in Sabah. 

Managed to capture only the signboard