Surrounded by a man-made lagoon, the City Mosque at Likas Bay in Kota Kinabalu pulled off a floating apparition when seen from a distance. As I trudged closer from where we had gotten off the bus, I could hear chants of worship spread out into the open air. In a place like that, with the bay fronting the opposite side and the mosque facing it against the lagoon, the chanting bemused the ears of even the most undaunted passersby. At that moment, I felt solemnity as I quickly cut the distance between myself and that architecturally gifted place of worship of our Muslim brothers. After gorging on street foods in Kota Kinabalu, I was finally experiencing the place in a new light and perspective.
Reflecting on Faith at the City Mosque in Likas Bay | Kota Kinabalu
The Floating Apparition
The blue dome of the mosque quickly arrested my attention. Set against a sky trapped between weeping rains and scattered clouds, it created a dreamy image enhanced by its billowing and slowly moving reflection over the lagoon water. The mosque, as seen from my camera viewfinder, sat as a perfect subject waiting to be framed properly. I clicked a succession of winning shots, and afterward, I found a quiet moment to stare at the mosque in a surrender of awe.
I wondered what more it was for the people practicing the Islamic religion, going inside, kneeling, and praying. An already powerful feeling multiplied by a dozen was what religion truly brought, and as a spectator of their faith from another religion, I had nothing but respect for how they practiced their beliefs and built places of worship such as the City Mosque in Likas Bay.
The Enduring Resonance of Faith
After a few minutes, throngs of the faithful started coming out of the mosque, and soon cars paraded out onto the streets; in a few minutes, the crowd disappeared. Fueled by another round of worship and the desire to shower goodness on others, they left a sense of spirituality lingering in the air. The mosque had again played its role in delivering the teachings of life to a larger mass. Beyond the architectural wonder of the place, it served as more than just a visual feast. Just like any other place of worship—from our own Spanish Colonial Churches to temples in neighboring Asian countries and mosques throughout the world, particularly in the Middle East—faith transcended and progressed within each of the walls of those structures.
After taking a few more photographs, we circled the mosque all the way to the other end by the highway facing Likas Bay. We saw the mosque from another angle, one more impressive than the earlier one. A few other Chinese tourists were there taking photos as well. My friend Josh, who was traveling outside of the Philippines for the first time, and I had been walking around Kota Kinabalu for hours, so we decided to take a short break to sit on the grass.
I remembered my first time traveling abroad was also in Malaysia when my brother took me with him on a short trip to Kuala Lumpur in 2007. One thing that made that trip completely worth it was seeing the temples and other mosques, particularly in Putrajaya, and I knew the feeling of seeing it all for the very first time was as surreal as it gets.
A Full Circle Journey
My travel bug started the second time around, after working fruitlessly like a slave in the corporate world for four years, with that trip. That time, it was my turn to accompany a first-time out-of-the-country traveler in the person of Josh. He was worried about his mom and girlfriend back home because they were worrying too much about him getting lost or, worse, getting hit by a speeding Proton car since they drove on the opposite side of the road there.
Motorists did not usually blow their horns in Malaysia, unlike in Manila, where it was like a Wild West of blowing horns. But we managed to have at least three cars sound their horns at us because we tried crossing while looking in the opposite direction. Lucky for us, we were spared from any accidents whenever we crossed the streets of Kota Kinabalu. After our brief rest, we stood up and strolled toward the nearby Chinese temple. Not long after, the rain fell hard, as if the tips of the raindrops were arrows.
Going there was fairly easy. One just had to take a bus to Likas Bay from the Central Bus Terminal near Wawasan Plaza—a mere walking distance from the Waterfront Esplanade. You paid the bus conductor 1 MYR and got off at the Likas Bay bus stop once you saw the imposing dome of the mosque. The nearby Puh Toh Si Temple was a ten-minute walk away from that mosque.
