Daily Archives: 27th January 2014

Malaysia, Travelinds

Likas Floating Mosque

1 Comment

27 January 2014

An afternoon outing in Kota Kinabalu took us to the Likas Mosque (better known as the ‘Floating mosque’ in KK).  Being our first visit to a mosque, we read up a bit on dress code/etiquette required and figured long sleeves, long pants and a headscarf for H would suffice.

Upon arrival, we were directed to the small shop/reception office outside where a kind lady helped us to dress appropriately.  There were kaftans, scarfs and head gear available there (for free) so that non-Muslim visitors would be allowed in to the mosque.

Outside the mosque, you are required to remove shoes and a guide then takes you through the mosque giving information about its construction, use and history.  We were informed that the mosque was built over 11 years (1989 – 2000), construction cost MYR 40 million and the building can comfortably fit between 9,000 to 12,000 worshipers.

The fifteen-minute tour concludes and visitors can take a couple of pictures inside and outside the mosque, provided no worshipers are disturbed.

At the same reception office, you can pay MYR 5 each and go on the peddle-boats in the water around the mosque. This is great for some fun and for getting a different angle on photos of the mosque. There is no time limit on using the peddle boat as far as we could tell.

Read the reviews on TripAdvisor. Be aware that some travellers have confused the floating mosque (Likas) with the Kota Kinabalu State Mosque, which are two different locations.

Likas Floating Mosque

Getting here:

Take a (big) bus from in front of the Shangri-la Motel (NOT the same as the fancy hotel complex far out of town). Ask for the Likas bus (it has a purple stripe) and ask the driver to drop you at the Likas Mosque. MYR 1 each.

Favourite memory:

We finished a nice afternoon exploring the mosque and riding the peddle boat and decided to catch a bus to the next stop, the Kota Kinabalu Wetland Centre.  We were told that it was an hour’s walk from the mosque, so thought the bus would be best.  First, the bus drivers told us ‘no bus, no bus’ (of the three busses standing there), then after some deliberation they decided it would be best to do a bus trip after all.  The few tourists and locals were herded on to the one bus and, after a push start, the wonky old bus started going, in the wrong direction from where we needed to go… In fact, it did a full circle and came back past the mosque bus stop before finally continuing on to the route we needed to go. The delay was only about 40 minutes, no big deal.

 

Malaysia, Travelinds

Kota Kinabalu State Museum

Leave a comment

27 January 2014

The Kota Kinabalu State Museum complex is a most interesting place to visit if you want to learn more about the intriguing culture and history of Sabah. We spent an entire day here and still didn’t get to see all that the complex has on offer.

The first stop was the Main Museum building and this kept us busy for a very long time! Natural history, Sabah special ‘Then and Now’ display and the ‘Our culture’ sections were the most interesting and it took a lot of time to work through all that valuable information.  We also watched a video (about an hour) in the natural history section titled ‘Borneo’ (1937) – an old black and white movie travelogue shot by famous explorers Martin and Osa Johnson.

We found some local Malaysian lunch at the small cafe called Zureen’s cafe (located just outside the heritage village, in the parking lot). This included our favourite ‘Char Keow Teoy’(fried flat noodles with chicken or prawns), ‘Mee Goreng’ (fried yellow noodles) and Horlicks/Nestum (milky sweet drink, served hot or with ice cubes).  I think the total lunch came to only MYR 12 for both of us.

After lunch, we finished up at the main building and then headed to the Heritage Village.  Here you can see all the different kinds of houses/huts/structures/transport/machinery/equipment used by the different tribes that can be found in Sabah.  It was a very interesting experience to see the vast differences in lifestyles, building designs and practical day-to-day instruments employed in these different tribes.  There was everything from a Chinese farm house to a Rungus longhouse. The Murut longhouse was my favourite, with its huge porcelain jars, wooden rhinoceros hornbills hanging from the ceiling and a trampoline-like floor that is used for entertaining guests.

There were not enough hours in our day to see everything so unfortunately we had to leave before we had seen the science museum, islamic museum and the ethnobotanical garden.  Read more about the Sabah Museum here.