8 Things I Hate About Kota Kinabalu, Sabah

Kota Kinabalu in Sabah, Malaysia.

Come in. Smell it. Smell that air? It's clear, unspoilt air.

See those guys sitting in the coffee shop? Yeah, those 3 guys, the Chinese, the Malay and the Kadazan dudes, sitting and laughing and just hanging out.

That's muhibbah.

That's racial tolerance right there. In pure form. Sincere and honest.

See those green things standing over there? That's called a forest. One of the biggest in the world and one of the most diverse of plants and animals.

But KK, Sabah is just like my girlfriend here:

Though she is THE most beautiful specimen of the homo sapien alive on planet Earth right now she does have some baaaaaad traits that I absolutely hate like leaving her under-garments all over the damn place and expecting me to pick up after her.

(Trust me guys after the first couple rounds of fore-plays and role-plays, it gets tiring.)

Back on point.

So even though I love my home town Kota Kinabalu to bits and there ARE many things to love about it, I got here some favourite issues of many Sabahans to bitch about, starting with...


8. Bad Roads

Check it out. The THIRD flyover in Sabah. Ever. Or as some douchebags here call them: fly-aways.

Get it right people, when you FLY AWAY, your frikkin' toes lift off and stay up to the cheers of the multitudes.

FLY OVERS are sections of road that only make you believe you're lifting off. At least for the first couple of times when you drive that modified heap of a Kancil at 60 km/h anyway.

So this fly-over has 3 lanes each side, passing by the Karamunsing intersection where you get spectacular views of the Kompleks Karamunsing, the Tun Fuad Stephens towers and the EPF building if you're so inclined to be impressed. I'll throw in the ONLY LED advertising board in town here too.

But you know what?

They're crap.

No sooner do you see the new flyovers come up, the sections where they begin and end start to feel like you taking a speed bump up the ass at 160km/h when you're only actually traveling at 20km/h.

And we have got more pot-holes in metropolitan KK than your post-pubescent acne-filled face after eating 10 KFC Buckets. The Hot & Spicy ones.


7. Drivers here suck.

I know you only had the minimum ten hours of driving instruction before you're legally authorised to take the test for the driver's license.

I know you spent the wee hours of the morning backing and forwarding your car to get the hang of the clutch.

I also know you had to get your instructor and driver's test agent to give the JPJ a pitiful RM100 gift as an 'endowment of appreciation' to 'facilitate' your performance on the test.

I KNOW all these. It's an open secret. No problem ok?

But you still suck at driving. And no, that stupid 'P' license doesn't mean you can drive like shit and not use your signals and drive real slow on the right lane. That 'P' automatically makes you palui by default.

Drivers in KK suck. No doubt about it. It's like saying the sun rises in the East and sets fire on their incompetent asses.

No signals when they switch lanes. Throwing scraps of shit out the windows. Driving slowly on the right-side lanes during rush hours. Using the signals but don't turn. Tail-gating.

I can go on and on.

Don't even mention what happens when it starts to drizzle. You'd almost mistaken them for thinking someone's playing a practical joke and decided to make a blizzard in KK thus rendering all roads slippery and dangerous if you drive at more than 30 km/h.

Douchebags on wheels indeed.

The only thing that can possibly worsen the situation is when they get more kap-chais on the road like in Penang and KL. But even that's happening.


6. Illegal Immigrants and Stateless Children.

GET. THE. FUCK. OUT.

is the logical summation of ALL that's been said on this topic.

Here. Here. And here.

Look. I'm not heartless. I agree Malaysia's a better deal for many immigrants who wants a better life with a better job and a chance to get with that immigrant chick he was eyeing on the boat coming over.

But hell, if they're gonna start some shit when they get here, I'm all for the government mouth-raping them and getting them the hell out of here ass first.

But then, you have their offspring who are born after they have reached and settled here illegally on fake MyKads. These kids are not registered anywhere which makes them 'stateless', not belonging to their parents' country of origin and not citizens of Sabah or Malaysia neither.

Poor, poor things.

Until they grow up and start harassing folk and tourists as mentioned here and here.

Then they deserve the same treatment by my friend here:


5. Shitty decor.

Kota Kinabalu's got a great sunset thing going for them and the abundance of natural and planted greenery but let's face it. The rest of the decor in town BLOWS.

Lime green, sun yellow, chili red lights? With blown out bulbs?? Sphere's of light hanging with no discernible pattern??? What the hell? Have we been letting birth-blind folk put these up???

Don't believe me? Drive along Anjung Senja towards KK Waterfront for just a few glaring examples of these lighting effects and tell me your retinas don't kick you in the balls for affronting them with these displays of suck.

Trust me it gets worse than this.

4. Spitting

Sigh.

I shouldn't need to but I'll let Wikipedia explain this:

"Spitting or expectoration is the act of forcibly ejecting saliva or other substances from the mouth. It is normally considered rude and a social taboo in many part of the world, though spitting can still be occasionally observed in some places. It is possible to transmit infectious diseases in this way."

LINK

Does 'NO SPITTING' as a general rule in polite society even need an introduction anymore?

The answer is a big fat 'FUCK YOU, NO'.

C'mon people stop doing that shit! And for that matter, no strong snorting, clearing your phlegm and blowing out your nose within visual contact of another human being.


3. Parking is shit here.

Yes, it's true. A KK person spends 30% of her life looking for parking during working hours.

OK fine I was exaggerating about the 30%.

But it is true that parking space in the town centre is one of the shittiest in the world. Unless you spend some money and park in a mall or something but most of the time, you'd have banged out a decent length (2 pages) article by the time you manage to find a spot. You'd also have caused your potential client to question your punctuality.

Developers: Put up some more parking complexes. They make money too dammit!


2. Shitty/non-existent garbage disposal.

What's large, has wheels and pees whenever you see it?

That's right. A KK City Hall garbage truck.

If you're out for dinner on a weekday at 8pm, bring along your favourite piece of gas mask. Because once one of these passes you and you just happen to be having your meals in an establishment with outdoor seating, you'd heave up your entire dinner. Yes, plus some of your lunch.

Trust me on this.

Somehow with the cooperation of the people (i.e. their inability to properly dispose of their garbage in tied garbage bags) and the general willful ignorance of the garbage disposal authorities, these smelly behemoths scour the city with their (very infrequent) pick-ups, with leeching trailing after them.

You KNOW how that should work out, don't you?


1. Toilets. Nuff' said.

The toilets, oh my god. The toilets.

If cleanliness is next to godliness, Sodom and Gomorah had NOTHING on Kota Kinabalu when it comes to the vileness of its dirty toilets.

Washrooms and toilets in general here are the epitome of SHYTE and sometimes you can take that literally.

One friend of mine worked as a complex manager for one major shopping mall here: "In some of the ladies rooms, you can see SMEARS of red on the walls at crouch height."

I stopped him there.

And usually, there are no toilet paper in public toilets caused by the prevalent and rampant cheapskatism which compels ordinary folk to steal toilet paper.



Well, what else can I say but.

Make Kota Kinabalu, Sabah your next holiday destination. If you dare.