Rumah Terbalik: Uber Tour in Kota Kinabalu
I became close with the Filipino friends sharing my guesthouse room, so we decided to go on a tour together. When I asked where we were going, they said we'd see Mount Kinabalu and the guide would take us to a few places along the way, but they weren't exactly sure where. It sounded like a completely unplanned tour where we'd just blindly follow the guide, but the company was great, so I agreed to tag along without a second thought.
Usually, when Koreans come here, they book a set course through a travel agency at Jesselton Point, or go through an agency in a shopping mall or one affiliated with their guesthouse. But uniquely, my friends had contracted an Uber driver for our tour. First of all, it's cheap (RM 150), and compared to a local tour where you don't know what kind of bus you'll get, there's the guaranteed advantage of knowing "we'll be comfortable in this taxi." They also mentioned it felt safer because the driver's friendliness was guaranteed. When they explained the tour to me, instead of the itinerary, they started with the driver and the car: "The driver is nice," "The driver speaks good English," "The car looks brand new," and only then explained the actual tour. Whether it's a cultural difference or just personal preference, it was interesting to see a tour selection process so different from the people around me. You can do tours not just with travel agencies but also with Uber or Grab drivers (I later heard this is technically illegal, but apparently everyone does it), so keep that in mind as an option when planning a trip to Kota Kinabalu.
We hopped into the Uber that arrived in front of our guesthouse at 9 AM and drove for quite a while. It was the ideal number of people—five of us in a five-seater—but the car was smaller than expected, and my friends were pretty well-built, so it felt like we were squeezed in. We drove long enough that we ran out of things to talk and laugh about. With the unchanging scenery outside and the drowsy morning sunlight streaming in, eventually, everyone except the driver fell into a deep sleep. Thanks to that, we arrived at our first destination before I even had time to think about how uncomfortable I was.
When I asked my Filipino friends where we had just arrived, they all replied, "I have no idea." The guide must have found it hard to explain in English too, because he just concluded it was "like an amusement park" and went to buy tickets. The name of our first stop was 'Rumah Terbalik'. I had no idea what it meant or what you did there, but that's the beauty of a package tour: "You don't need to know, you just follow along."
It's hard to say whether an artwork is good or bad, but as a place to hang out, it's not great. Well... everyone has different tastes based on how they've lived, but aside from taking a fun photo, there really isn't much to do or play with here. It feels like they're saying, "We flipped everything upside down because we thought it might look fun," and my response is, "Eh... well, it's just a bit unique and nothing more." They even have a guide who explains things passionately, but the content itself is a bit lacking.
Anyway, it seems the first tour stop was a bust. Guide, where to next?
Expenses (conservatively calculated, multiply by 300 KRW to get the amount in Korean Won)
- Tour fee RM 150
- Water RM 1.95
- Water, cigarettes RM 18
- Room rate until Sept 1st RM 72.1
- Durian shake RM 9.9
- Carlsberg beer RM 22
Daily expenses: RM 273.95
Total trip expenses: 2,875,000 KRW + RM 1324.78