At the Shangri-La’s Ocean Wing with Agnes Newton Keith

If you are going all the way to Borneo and plan to spend time in the Kota Kinabalu area, then you would be mad not to stay at the Shangri-La Rasa Ria, and book yourself into their new top of the range Ocean Wing.

All its 90 large rooms feature an extra-spacious balcony, complete with huge limestone bath and a comfy day bed. On our first day there it rained, but it was still warm and we forgot all about the weather as we enjoyed a leisurely breakfast in the Coast restaurant, which is reserved exclusively for this wing.

One good thing about the weather was that it gave us a chance to simply relax and head for the day beds with a good book – after all our travelling around the island it was a nice break to sit back and enjoy the luxurious surroundings.

I plunge deep into Land Below the Wind, the fascinating diary account of life in North Borneo in the 1920s by Agnes Newton Keith, hardly noticing the rain streaming down. Cosy in the 30-degree heat and privacy of our balcony I immerse myself in Keith’s descriptions of a traditional way of life that can still be glimpsed on the island.

I highly recommend it as a top holiday read, although it isn’t the easiest book to get hold of these days. Give a specialist book shop like City Books a call (01273 725306) to order a copy. It’s the first of her three books about life in North Borneo. The second, Three Came Home, was made into a film in 1950 and tells of the Keith family’s attempts to escape Borneo during the Japanese occupation in World War Two.

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