Tawau, Sabah - Seafood at its Best

I was in Sabah just a couple of weeks ago. Kota Kinabalu to be exact, the capital of Sabah, north of Borneo Island. My how the landscape has changed. My last visit to Kota Kinabalu (or KK for short) was back in early 2006, while I was working on a project in Tawau, southeast of Sabah. They are now building (or have completed some parts of it) a fly-over which crosses over the main road leading to the city centre towards Centrepoint shopping mall, or something like that. Sutera Harbour Resort still looks good, since it was first developed in the early 2000s. There are a couple of new shopping places again, one of them is City Mall I believe it's called, and another one just sort of next to Centrepoint. I don't remember what that one is called now. For the shoppers among you, you can find out more in a fellow shoppers' travel blogs of KK.

In less than 50 words, Kota Kinabalu is a modern city with a rather impressive road network and is fast expanding, thanks to the developments on the reclaimed land to the coastal side of the city. It's best for quick shopping trips because they do have good shopping places in KK, much much better than Kuching I would say.

Tawau - What I remember best about this town is the excellent and very affordable seafood. it's also the gateway to one of the region's best coral reef areas and diving areas, i.e. Semporna and Sipadan island. Check out other similar places in this region in coral reef diving travel blog. In Tawau you can get escargoes and lobsters for half the price you pay in the cities, cooked that is.

Food area to visit will be the stretch from Sabindo Seafood Night Market (Pasar Malam) which will take you through dozens of Chinese and Malay coffee shop to open air cafes that serve anything from beef noodle soup (Ngiu Chap or Soup Tulang) to fish and chips. Best part to me is it's fresh, delicious and very very affordable - you won't break your wallet even if you bring 10 of your most carnivorous buddies along to feast.

How to get there? First fly yourself (from wherever you are) to KK, then get a connecting flight to Tawau. That would either be MAS or Air Asia.

I've not been to Sipadan myself, but would like to go there someday. Gonna need to take good pictures to make a good travel blog.