Early hits and misses
Some hits:
Well, we made it! That’s the biggest hit so far. This trip seemed distant and impossible for me until we were quite literally on the flight from SF to Hong Kong. The last month in DC included— in addition to moving out of and subletting our place, Niki leaving her job and my departing for four months — a two week bout of bronchitis and 36 hour case of food poisoning from some bad chicken. Now, nine days on the road, our travel muscle feels warmed up.
Niki got me a pack of the Moth storytelling prompt cards which helped populate conversation for the nine hour ascent and seven hour decent of Mt. Kinabalu.
Our snack game and hydration was on point— and critically needed— for the 7,000 vertical feet up and down. We consumed roughly 10 energy bars, two goos, and ~20 nuun electrolyte tabs.
We rented hiking poles for the Mt. Kinabalu summitting. First time I’ve used them, but lord, we needed them. Niki and I can still barely walk 48 hours after a 7k foot descent over seven hours but I suspect it’d be even worse without the assist.
We packed well. I brought maybe a couple more items than needed, and we have discovered a few things we probably should have brought (like a camelback for the hike and coozies for our beverages). But overall we have had zero major packing oversights.
Some misses:
We didn’t eat a real breakfast our first morning in Hong Kong and— after getting caught in a tourist trap funicular mess on a very hot day— my stomach rebelled. I was on our hotel bathroom floor sick within the first eight hours of the trip and spent the afternoon sleeping off a combo heat, malnutrition, and jet lag “flu” of sorts.
One rule for getting into Malaysia is that you have your onward flight beyond Malaysia already booked at the time of travel. We thought we could get lucky and bypass this. The last time I was here in 2003 I traveled from Malaysia to Thailand overland! So this requirement seemed “dumb” to us. Upon check in for our flight from Hong Kong to Kota Kinabalu, however, the Air Asia agent informed us that, nope, we were definitely not entering the country without evidence of an onward flight. We had exactly 15 minutes to book one before check-in closed. Not knowing the exact details of our plans, this set off a quick sprint to purchase a shell flight for late April to show “proof” of onward passage. I booked some random Air Asia flight towards the end of April and TBD on whether we’ll be able to use it or get a refund on that.
We got totally ripped off by a seafood place on Hong Kong’s Lamma Island (even after reading warnings in reviews), which charged us somewhere in the range of $12 - $16 / shrimp and maybe $40 - $50 for two large razor clams. They were all yummy but not that yummy.
We brought our GoPro and about 12 accessories that take up a full gallon-sized bag and it’s clear we will not need this kind of equipment. We may not be the GoPro-ers we thought we were.
