Less than 2 days

We touched down Tawau airport with MAS Airlines as early as 8ish on the 19thJuly 2011, returning to the city the following night. Although it sounded like a dash-and-go trip, but in fact, there were ample of free time for us to kill, in that short 2 days 1 night trip. But, we didn’t manage to do any shopping or to tour around the town though. The last time I trod my feet there was in 2002 for Chinese New Year. Throughout our less than 2days trip there, our itinerary was very much an impromptu. Nothing has been planned earlier other than for official matters. The rest was spent in our room and relative’s houses. A very short but somehow we had some quality bonding time with the relatives.

On the first day upon arrival, we took a cab and headed straight to where my brother is going to further his studies and out-grow his teenage phase and coming back in the next 0.5 decade as an adult (excluding the occasional weekends or semester breaks that he’ll be home :P). After we have settled down with all the dorm registration, we were initially planning to go down town and tour around at our own pace before catching up with our relatives after the Sunday School classes.

However, boy oh boy, there was no taxi nor public transport going into the campus. We learnt this only from a senior student whom we brushed shoulder with by chance. He was a great help, but unfortunately to no avail since it was a semester break, the school compound was all quiet and tranquil with no sight of any passer-by or students yet. From what we understood, one shall walk to the nearest junction, which is about 5 kilometers (an approximation I made with the aid of imagination based on UMS’ route from SEIT to the furthest dorm) where public buses or taxi when luck strikes would be passing by. A lesson learnt here :). But thank God that after we have decided to give up and walk to the junction, after mom and I changed into our flats later on, we spotted a taxi chauffeuring a student, who was returning to the dorm. Voila, we hop into the cab right after that :).

While we were going on the cab heading to the town, our plan was called off as my uncle called up, and we decided to meet up at the Shell petrol station at Tmn. Bintang. So, off we went and had our breakfast at one of the well reputed kopitiam among the Chinese locals there. A mental note for myself that when ordering for drinks in most of the coffee shop, one shall emphasize accurately how you want your drinks to be prepared like; whether its a combination with condensed milk, evaporated milk, sugar or so forth. They will usually ask; but according to my aunt, if you look local, they will usually presume that you were ordering merely of what you mentioned added with water (i.e milo kosong or kopi kosong). I was dumbfounded when I was first asked what do I want to add to my drinks. The silly me surmised that they might be offering some special add-on(s) for hot drinks; i.e pearl, nata de coco or maybe jellies O.o

Below are some snippets and quick glance on what we did there, very much like a closer-to-the-nature getaway :P

Beautiful orchids

My aunt has a farm of reasonable size planted with varies of crops. Below clockwise from top left are dragon fruit buds, dragon fruit flower which will only bloom during night time with baby fruit underneath, goat’s manure used as fertilizers and eventually the organic dragon fruit.

From top left are part of the field planted with dragon fruit trees, dragon fruit tree with a couple of withered flowers (I heard a lot about the flower, but unfortunately I didn't get the chance to see it blooming during night time), we hand peeled the fruits back at our rest house, the fruits from our harvest that afternoon.

Calamansi and kaffir lime

A couple of amusement hours with this pretty and active toy poddle, Pearly. Not forgetting, a money lover too. Her batteries was perpetually in the full bar.

On the second day, most of the time was spent for registration. Everything was settled by 3pm before we headed for a hi-tea with my aunt and her husband before they sent us to the airport for our flight home.