Our flight was to take off from Chennai, India at 11.05 p.m on the 15th of November and not knowing what awaited us I wanted this trip to Sabah, Malaysia to be over as quickly as it started. The Sabah Tourism Board had invited 11 of us to visit them and we were all mostly not known to each other at the beginning of the trip. Not expecting this to be one of my life’s greatest experience I rebuffed meeting all of them as going on a trip with complete strangers was something I was doing for the first time ever. This wasn’t the only thing that happened to be on my “FIRST TIME EVER” list.
I met 8 of my fellow travelers at the Chennai airport and it all went well for the first meet. Was to meet the rest at Malaysia as they boarded from different destinations.
We had a short layover at Kuala Lumpur before we boarded the flight to Kota Kinabalu at 8.10 am on the 16th of November. Incidentally, I got to sit with one of the other members on the flight trip to Kota Kinabalu that I hadn’t met at Chennai and we both got talking to the whole of 3 hours of the trip. We reached Kota Kinabalu and were received with the warmest of smiles. The first day of the trip went on in a way that I least expected it to go and I was starting to feel happy about being on the trip.
Before remarking what I did on day 2 I’d like to mention all the things that went on my “first ever” list. I went ahead and experienced my first ever
- White Water Rafting
- Proboscis Monkey Watching
- Jet Skiing
- Parasailing
- Kayaking
- Watched the sea, the river, the mountains and the luscious rainforest in one frame
- Snorkeling ( A Non-Swimmer Experience )
- Ocean Walking
- Tea Making
- Longest Island to Island Zip Lining
Also, I ATE A LIVE WORM!
Well, don’t you think this a whole handful lot of things to do on a weeks trip?
From the warmest of smiles to the amount of sea food that we ate, to the number of dialects they spoke and to the number of tribes that lived there, to the bundle of items in the markets and to the nicest of people the Sabahan’s were, to all my first experiences and to the most wonderful friends I made on the trip, to all the sleepless amazing nights that we stayed up to talk and to the cool and peaceful pool dips, to the amount of chips consumed on the trip and to the amount of naps that we had on our shuttle trips, to the most beautiful landscapes and to the shining sea urchins along the banks, to the majestic islands and to the mind blowing sunsets, to the heaven like sun rises and to the room views that we had, to the trek up the resorts own rain forest and to a whole week‘s of jaw hurting laughs, to the scorching sun and to the number of sunscreen bottles that we emptied, to all the nerve wracking experiences and to the home away from home feeling SABAH made me believe that there’s no place like it .
And like I mentioned before when we first started I so badly wanted it to be over and I was more than disappointed when it finally ended as quickly as it started. Bidding goodbye’s to all the wonderful people I met on the 22nd of November made me want to curl up and cry as that was the hardest of things to do.
Sabah made me live, I found a new me, I built confidence and it sure did show me how to love.
Find Sabah, find yourself.
