Jalan Gaya and Jalan Pantai are streets which run parallel to each other in Kota Kinabalu in where the locals called Bandar KK lama or old KK town. As far I can remember this is the only Kota Kinabalu I know as a kid in the sixties. For me to ponder and look at old KK town is to relive my childhood. This is city within a city housing all the amenities that are hallmarks of a city. For visitors, lodgings ranges from medium cost hotels to backpackers. Banks and moneychangers are all around. Food and medicines are available at stone-throw distance.Little have changed for the last 40 years in terms of infrastructure for old KK town, maybe just a little cosmetic-wise like the roads of Jalan Gaya being changed from asphalt to bricks. Though the two streets lie within same mini city, both have their own stories to relate
Gaya Street
Gaya street is well known for it’s Sunday open market which kicks as early as 0630 am where people come for the best there are to offer hence the early bird got the worm. One can buy anything from live dogs, cats, rabbits, plants or the latest gadgets for household or personal use. This is a good place for people with all kinds of hobbies. For me Gaya Street is more than market it is history and nostalgia. The Sabah Tourism office in this street was the old colonial post renovated and refurbished to look new. One other building is the Jesselton Hotel is more than 50 years old and is still going strong and her rates commensurate with her antique value. Those days when there wasn't an open Sunday market yet, we used to enjoy the laksa noodle soup which is a local delicacy comprise of curry like substance with eggs, soya beancurds, chicken and coconut milk. I have not been to that shop in long while but I’ve heard the shop owners have retired and the new people don’t make as good a laksa as the previous owners. In the 70s I remember my mum bought my first pair of Christmas shoes for Rm 13 at a shop called Bata but the shop has move somewhere else. The first supermarket is found in Gaya Street and the super market has expanded ever since. It seems that Gaya Street was the trend setter in business and people came out of the place to do bigger things and it is a prosperous street.
Jesselton Hotel
Pantai Street
Compared to Gaya Street, Pantai street or Beach street in English, the adjacent street’s business didn’t go smooth sailing as it’s neighbour. It has it’s equal ups and downs. First the good things; it is easy to find a place to stay here and the rates are quite reasonable. One can walk a block and the hotels are lined up with each other. The other thing is the food is also in one line of shops and there are multiple choices for everyone. My personal favourite is the satay which are beef or chicken meat skewered in thin wooden sticks and eaten with peanut sauce.
My memories of Beach street as a kid was when my grandma took me for the first time to drink in a coffee shop there. She ordered milked tea for me and I remembered I drank from the saucer instead of the cup. The local lingo for the tea mixed with condensed milk is teh. Forty years on I’m still hooked on this drink and I will not miss my morning ‘teh’. That’s about it for good side of Pantai Street. Unexplainable things happen in this street it even though it can never pass off as a dark alley. Shops opened for business for a while then close down then another came and go broke again even though they look like they were thriving. What’s more this is happening in a tourist belt. I remember 10 years ago there was a disco named Crash here true to it s name it crashed and broke.Not only that certain weird things happened to some people to went there. In one instance I know of was two pilots who went there the night before they flew and the very next day both died in a plane crash. Recently about two years ago, a whole block comprising restaurants got burnt to the ground and now it s a parking lot for taxis. I don’t believe in jinxes but something is not right. Maybe God is cleansing this place up.
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