Since I had taken my traveling desire a few notches higher over the past couple of years, I had learned to adjust myself when it came to choosing a place to stay. Gone were the days when I looked for comfort first; rather, I asked for the price first, and whatever convenience a place of accommodation presented was only considered a bonus. I had stayed in hostels where bed bugs and giant rats became your friends at the end of the night. Walls made of thin plywood meant you could hear headboards banging in the next room, caused by two lovers indulging in you-know-what. Mostly, those were the five-hundred-peso-and-below types of hostel rooms. Heading to Kota Kinabalu, a few friends who had been there had already told me that it was a different case there, because there were a lot of cheap hostels that were well taken care of and offered the kind of comfort a traveler needs when he or she is on the road.