D’Villa Rina Ria Lodge

Just 500 metres away from the entrance of Kinabalu Park Headquarters, D’Villa Rina Ria Lodge is the nearest lodge outside Kinabalu Park, and with rooms price three times lower than those chalets and lodges inside Kinabalu Park. This is good enough reason to attract visitors. D’Villa Rina Ria Lodge was built in the year 1992, and it is also one of the first lodges to be built around Kinabalu National Park. Kinabalu National Park became a World Heritage site in 2000, and is also the first World Heritage site in Malaysia. In August 2008 a new management has taken over the day to day running of D’Villa Rina Ria Lodge. Since then the lodge has been refurnished, up graded and repainted. One of the improved results is that guests will be greeted with the many sweet colours of the new paint work.

There are only nine rooms available at D’Villa Rina Ria Lodge, four standard rooms, three family rooms and two dormitory rooms. The four standard rooms are again sub-divided into two King Bed rooms and two twin bed rooms, each of this room has their own washroom with hot shower and toilet, and a balcony that looks out to the Bundu Tuhan valley below. The family rooms have two rooms, a King bed rooms and a twin bed room. Hot shower, toilet and a small living room are also included in the Family room. All these rooms except the dormitory are provided with Astro, Malaysia only satellite TV. The Astro channels available are AXN, Asian Food Channel, Discovery, National Geography, ESPN, Eurosport, et cetera et cetera.

standard room

For the backpackers D’Villa Rina Ria Lodge has two dormitory rooms, each has six bunk beds that can sleep up to twelve persons. There are also a shower and toilet in each dormitory room. The dormitory bed comes with a pillow, blanket and a clean white bed sheet. The price for the dormitory is only RM 30 per person per night, including breakfast. Laundry, transport service, and Internets are also available. BBQ stoves are provided free of charge, guests just need to bring their own foods and charcoals. The average temperature here is around 20 to 18 degrees Celsius, and it can get quite chilly during a stormy nights.

D’Villa Rina Ria Lodge sits on a ridge area that happens to separate two valleys below, namely the Budun Tuhan Valley and the Kiau Valley. Because of this geographical conditions most evenings in the area are covered with a thin layer of white mist by the passing cross wind, and sometimes it happens in the morning too. The patio deck and garden porch at D’Villa Rina Ria Lodge are the best places to view the perfect picture of the surrounding landscape. Starting from the Bundu Tuhan valley with its many vegetable gardens and rolling hills that extend toward Kundasang town. And the view continues with even more hills and forest until it reaches the Trus Mardi mountain range, at 2,642 metres is Malaysia second highest Mountain after Mount Kinabalu. On a clear sunny day the top part of Mount Kinabalu is visible from here too.

D’Villa Rina Ria Lodge has a small and clean restaurant that can sit a maximum of 30 persons. The menu has simple foods like fried rice, noodles, soup and seafood. Like most restaurants at Kundasang this place does not served pork. In the morning the chef do serve a great English Breakfast, consisting toast breads, omelet, chicken sausages, jam & butter, quite an important meal for those planning to climb Mt. Kinabalu on the same day. In the evening one should try out the Steamboat which cost RM 25 per person, especially when in a group of friends and family. Steamboat is the number one dinner served in Kundasang, where guests can savour the self cooked food and hot steamy soups, and still enjoy the surrounding cold weather. For those who like spicy foods, one can opt for the Curry Laksa or Tom Yam Seafood Soup, these spicy foods are a great way to help keep the body warm.

Restaurant Business Hour:
Breakfast – 06:00 to 10:00
Lunch – 11:30 to 12:30
Dinner – 18:30 to 21:30