Tenom Part 2 - Hotel Sri Perdana, Food and Coffee

Famous Tenom Egg Roll Pork Noodle Soup and the Yong Tau Foo

  We arrived Tenom town at about 12.40pm. The first thing we did was to look for the 1 star hotel, Sri Perdana. Our landmark was the KFC. Before we came, I already had a map drawn out with landmarks, so that we knew our bearings right. As we got down from the bus, we saw the KFC building so easily. When we walked to the KFC, Sri Perdana hotel was visible just across the road.

There were only 3 hotels in town and all were 1 star. Perkasa hotel, a 3 star, were up the hills, away from town. Homestay comfortable cabins at Yit Foh and Fatt Choi coffee factory were also a distance away. Without a transport, it's not possible to stay at those places. There were no public buses or "Grab drivers"  available. Tenom has a few taxis, parked in front of the train station but they were also hardly available after dark .

Map with landmarks of Tenom town

Arrow mark showed Sri Perdana Hotel. 

Our first impression of the hotel was mmmm🙄🙄.... Never mind, as long as there is a decent place to stay for a night, is good enough. 😜😜

In front of KFC was the Shell Gas station.

Antanom community center. 

It was next to the corner of the old colonial building,

 Sri Perdana hotel is normally fully booked when there are Interstate Badminton, Ping Pong, and basketball tournaments at Antanom community center. 

  old colonial structured building 

KFC building 

Arrow marked showed the Train Station. 

Front door of the hotel. There is a curfew period. By midnight the gate is locked. We dont mind because we were in for an early night anyway.  Room rates dated 30/5/2019.

 

Check in counter was on the first floor and our room 202 was on the 2nd floor. No IC was needed for checking in. Once RM 58 was paid, the room key was given. 

The receptionist, Mel, was very helpful and courteous.He has been working for this hotel for more than 10 years now. He told us that most customers were mainly coming for the badminton, ping pong or basket ball, because of  Antenom community centre.

Hotel Room key 

The hotel was really old . 

It was started in ??1998. The door was not electronic so we needed to lock and unlock the door using the key manually😅

But, when we step into the room, we were surprised, it's reasonally clean and comfortable. We had the room with window, facing the old colonial structured building .

Room was old but clean and comfortable

Clean bathroom 

Everything was old, even the 14 inches telly was the old "box" tv. Based on the price, location and cleanliness, i would stay again if i were to return. It was clean and comfortable enough to sleep for the night. There were towels, soap and a pair of slippers ( different colour for left and right foot) but we were not using  any of those because we brought our own. 

After switching on the AC to cool the room, I was trying to close the curtain, when the whole curtain flew out of the curtain rail. "Oh my god," I said, "What the heck man." But  since our window was facing the roof of the old colonial structured building, we were not fussy about it, moreover, we dont fancy maintaince man coming into the room when we were there.

Curtain rail bits came off😜

Screws from the window rail and curtain on the floor.😅

The faulty window rail left us with only 1 sided curtain, Outside the window, showing the roof of the old colonial structured building across the road.

Tenom Market

After we checked into the hotel, we came out again to look for the Tenom market.

 It was about 1.30pm, the market was still open, but the food stall as expected, closed except stall No 6 which was the right side of the left photo.  According to the blogger, all the stalls sell the same food, but the 1st and 2nd  stalls (from the left in the photo) were  more popular. We were hungry after a long trip, so we ordered yong tau foo and chun kien (egg roll pork) noodle soup from stall No 6 which was the only available food stall. True enough, Tenom yong tau foo was really delicious - it had a soft and smooth texture...  As for the chun kien noodle (egg roll pork),  I would rate it as  "so so"  but the portion was big.  At least we knew where the market was. Very important because we had to catch the 7.30am train the next morning after breakfast from stall No 1😅

As we were touring the town, we asked the owner of a photo shop for directions to the coffee factory. She told us we need a transport to go, and pointed to a couple with 2 little cute children who also wanted to go there. I took the courage to ask if they dont mind sharing the same transport. This pleasant family agreed and introduced himself as Mark.

later found out that actually they were guests of the Yit Foh coffee factory. We all walked together to the train station, where all the taxis were waiting for customers. The taxi driver, a chinese guy, suggested we visited the Fatt Choi coffee factory as well because of the scenery and he would charge only Rm 30 for return fare and a 1 hour waiting . We took the offer. Mark and family paid for the trip too but didnt go because the children were too tired. What a pity because it was worth a visit due to the scenery, where we could see the river Padas and the bridge at a better angle. Never mind, Mark, We took some pictures to share with you here 😂😂

Yit Foh Coffee Cafe and Homestay

Behind this signboard, was a small plane, bought by the owner for display. He must be so crazy with planes. I read a  story recently of an american man, Bruce Campbell

 who was so crazy with planes that he bought one old Boeing plane and created it into an impressive home in Oregon.

We parted way here with this nice family but promised to keep in touch through my stories in my blog😂😂 It's a pleasure to have met you, Mark and your family😊

Yit Foh Coffee Cafe 

Free coffee tasting but unfortunately, i can't take any coffee or tea,What a shame.😢😢😢

My sister thinks the coffee here is much dearer than in KK

Home stay at Yit Foh...Each cabin has fancy names of the coffee such as Mocha, Cappucino, white coffee, Long black and so on.

Colourful umbrellas as shades and decor for the path way to the cabin

Chinese Taxi driver drinking his free coffee

It was so humid and hot but we still had another place to go, and it's Fatt Choi Coffee factory, up the hills. We wanted to see what this place had to offer.....It wasn't far from Yit Foh, Actually it's on the way back to town. There was a steep road to overcome. oh my! I wouldn't drive my Betsy to this place. Partly because I don't think I have the confidence to drive her up this steep. But our taxi driver must have done it many times taking customers to this place, so he knew how to adjust his old car. My poor sister Amy was so terrified, horrified, petrified, all the fearful words you can think off 🤭🤭and she kept cursing all the way up saying "Sh-t! Oh my! Oh My!" I thought she was going to pass out 😂😂😂😂

But towards the top, it was worth while to come. The scenery was indeed impressive. Just like Yit Foh, there were cabins as homestay.

Views from Fatt Choi Coffee Factory

Night stalls at Fatt Choi Home stay

Burger stalls open only from 3.30pm to 10pm -mainly for the inhouse guests ,as it's too far to go downtown and with the steep hills, i guess no one really wants to drive to that area after dark ,unless it's an emergency.

Full of shades from the trees and windy atmosphere at Fatt Choi Coffee Factory

Fatt Choi Cafe....open space concept ,sitting area. It's windy and breezy, blowing everywhere.

 Reasonable price for these snacks

My sister bought 2 packet of coffee from Fatt Choi

We returned to town around 3.30pm.Most of the chinese restuarants close by 3pm. Tenom town is very small and simple. It's easy to go about. Within an hour, tour around the town was completed

There was tamu in front of the train station- But the food was not to our taste. So.....

Like it or lump it, we still ended up at KFC for dinner😊

After our dinner, we stopped by 7 Eleven which was next door to the KFC, bought some water and enough tibits for the night.

Photo taken from our room at 8pm.  The street was so quiet. Not a soul was walking around.

We had all we needed for the night so we didn't need to go down any more.😜😜😜

We had a long exhausting day. By the time our heads touched the pillow, we were in the land of nod.

By 4.30am we were fully awake feeling rejuvenated. We must have gone to bed so early without realising the time.

        We decided to go to the market early by 5.15 am

At 5.30am the street was still very quiet and empty. As we both were walking along the road, all sorts of unpleasant thoughts and imaginations were running in our head, such as head hunters, thieve or psychopaths hiding around corners.😨😨😨

We were thinking, should we head back to the hotel, but after consoling each other , we took the brave move to go on .

When we passed the Petronas gas station, we felt a relief, Phew! 

We made it to the market. It's not so quiet. Cars now coming in and out. People moving about in the market

But the food court was still empty except the cafe which was already opened. My sister and I ordered hot drinks while waiting for 1st stall to open. It was 5.30am . We waited for half an hour and the boss, a white hair old man arrived around 6am with a young man, i presume , his son? I never asked though. 

Stall No 1 - famous Tenom Egg Roll Pork were displayed. Rm12 per piece

The ladies, nice ladies ,photo from the left,  warned me not to ask or talk to the old man while he's preparing his food or we will get a mouthful from him. So obediently we waited and by 6.05am the young man took our order, chun kien mee hoon soup and 4 pieces of young tau foo for us both. At the same time, I ordered 4 piece of chun kien to take home

       Stall No 1                                                               Stall No 6

A bowl of Chun Kien noodle soup and 2 pieces tau foo was Rm10

Tasted the popular Stall No 1. chun kien noodle soup. this man really lived up to his name. it was really tasty as commented by many in blogs and tripadvisor. But for the Yong Tau Foo, both stall's was soft and smooth but i still prefered the one from stall no 6

4 pieces of chun kien into my cooler box to bring home . A piece  cut into 1/3, wrapped in greaseproof paper and into my cooler bag for transportation to Kota Kinabalu!😅😅

               6.05am customers starts coming                      6.15am more customers coming

After a satisfying breakfast, we walked back passing by the police station, it suddenly became misty
We checked out from the hotel , informed the counter about the curtain and they were not surprised.