Kota Kanabalu

I know it's been a long time. There are various reasons for this, but if you appreciate my blog, let me know- the feedback might spur me on. I have a couple of other ideas for blogs in the pipeline, so keep your eyes open for something else soon.

The weekend before last we went to Kota Kinabalu, as we had three days off in a row. We'd promised our friend Norbert that we'd come and visit him after he was posted to Sabah from Ipoh. He caught the bus across from the other coast of Sabah, we drove to KL and caught a plane, and in Kota Kinabalu we met up for a weekend of renewed aquaintances, sightseeing and experiences. The rest of the story I will tell in photos...

This cute little boy and his brothers had been trained well. When I picked up my camera to photograph them selling cheap Indonesian cigarettes, they swept the box up as swiftly as an African dealer under the Eiffel Tower tidies away his illicit paintings. This was one of the surprises we encountered on our Friday morning visit to the "Philippine Markets" (craft markets) in Kota Kinabalu.

Norbert is one of the few people I know who can match the inventor for generousity, intellect and sheer capacity for stimulating conversation. They enjoyed making up for all the missed opportunities.

Norbert took us to Shangri-la Tanjung Aru Resort just before sunset so we could watch the sun set over the ocean. There was a small crowd gathered on the beach, and we weren't to be disappointed.

As the sun dropped towards the horizon, the sky burned with an ever-richer orange, and the silent ripples of the darkening water flickered with the last of the sun's dying brilliance. The silence was only disturbed by the gentle conversations and the sound of shutters collecting the moment for eternity.

I love the silver-lined clouds just after the sunset, a promise that the sun will return tomorrow from under the horizon.

As the sun slips off to rest, the people drift away in small groups, to eat, to party, or to rest themselves. Soon we are the only ones left in the silence, the strains of Simon and Garfunkel drifting over the water to remind us that the day is done, and the night's revelries have begun.

I had read about the musical fountain in Perdana Park, but as it's a little out of town, I had figured it would be difficult to get to and we had resigned ourselves to not seeing it. What I hadn't figured on, however, was Norbert driving us all around town in his brother's borrowed car. It also just happened that we were driving past the fountain just before 7pm when the "show" starts, on our way back from watching the sunset. We were fortunate to be there when it started and watched the 20 minutes or so of dancing water timed to various musical pieces, especially as the fountain is advertised to go from till 9.30pm, but it seemed to stop when it came to the end of the repertoire that we watched. We don't know if it comes on later, but 7pm seems the best time to catch it, and a considerable crowd were gathered around the edges of the pond waiting to watch the pretty display.

There was a food festival the weekend we were in KK, being held just a few minutes' walk from our hotel. I had hoped to see a little more (they had cooking demonstrations, cultural dancing and flair demonstations), but we ended up only making it there for a short while. There were small displays of foods from various cultural/ ethnic groups from Sabah, but disappointingly, the food for sale was the usual greasy standard fare. Instead we chose to try some fresh Sabah seafood at a Chinese restaurant.

On our second day there (Easter Saturday) we took a boat like this to the island of Pulau Mamutik. The day was lovely, relaxing and hurry-free, and the only disappointment was that the company that was meant to pick us up (Beach Bums was the name of the company, which appealed to me, but I won't recommend them now!) were nearly an hour late, so we ended our time on the island getting sunburnt and stressed, rushing to every boat that landed on the jetty (and there were many of them) to see if it was our boat.

This is Mamutik Island from the water. This view doesn't give any indication of the sheer numbers of people that the marine park management allow to land on the tiny island each day.

We got a bit of a fright when we looked in the water after landing on the island, as we saw what looked like a baby crocodile gliding in to the beach. It turned out to be a small water monitor heading back to shore after its breakfast. It just goes to show, once a north Queenslander, always a north Queenslander. We've been well-trained to spot and avoid crocs and snakes and other creatures with venomous and sharp bits.

And speaking of creatures we usually avoid, it was somewhat perturbing to swim with so many jellyfish in the water. Jellyfish are yet another animal that north Queensland supplies in the most dangerous form, so brushing past these harmless little creatures with my bare skin was akin to bungee jumping in the measure of months (or years) taken off my life. You can see some of the cute little fish in the photo, though, and there were a lot of pretty species, despite the coral being somehwat unimpressive. It's actually the first time I've seen a clown fish outside of an aquarium, and I saw three different varieties just in a one-hour snorkel off one beach. They are obviously hand-fed, as they will rise from their anemones to your outstretched hand- one cheeky one even had a nip of my hand as it was the only thing being offered. I watched an eel crawl out of its hole to go and find some lunch, saw a pretty clam, and lost track of the different species of fish we observed. There are designated snorkelling and swimming areas, roped off to keep the endless string of motor boats out, but nothing could keep out the equally endless stream of rubbish that floated in on the clear water. The islands are just opposite the city of Kota Kinabalu, and while we found KK cleaner than Kampar, the Malaysian propensity towards dropping litter wherever it is convenient still prevails.

A "selfie" on the beach. The hotel had beach towels to rent.

The lovliest thing about our trip to Sabah was the blue sky! We don't get a lot of clear, blue skies around Kampar, and it is surprising how deeply we miss something that most Australians take for granted. Kampar, due to its geography, has a very high cloud cover, and most days there is at least a little cloud greying out the blue of the sky. Add to that the  "haze" of the latter part of the year, a Malaysia-wide phenomenon caused by fires in Indonesia laying a fine layer of particulates in the upper - and often, lower- atmosphere, and we don't get many clear, really blue skies.

Saturday night we went to Mari Mari Cultural Village with Norbert and a friend of his. The village is a well-organised set of displays of the traditional way of life of five or six of the indigenous cultural groups of Sabah. Here, a lady demonstrates the making of Dusun rice wine, in a Kadazan-Dusun house. The houses weren't that strange to us, this one in particular being very similar to the huts built by the Orang Asli in our area. What was strange, though, was wearing our shoes inside. And the strength with which the floors had been engineered. With our church, from time to time we visit the OA villages that we support in the Cameron Highlands an hour or two from Ipoh, and the inventor and I, being taller and in every way heavier that our church colleagues and OA hosts, need to carefully plan a route across the bamboo floor and settle ourselves down somewhere solid-looking to join the worship or eating.

I just thought she is beautiful! She was showing us an instrument that she obviously doesn't know how to play.

The inventor is modelling a one-size-fits-all vest made from bark that is beaten to make it tough. They also demonstrated making rope, starting a fire, cooking, and we all got to try using the blow-pipe to shoot a dart at a coconut! After the guided tour, we were served a buffet meal of traditional dishes.

These, our guide assured us, are plastic skulls, but the one up higher is a real one! Some of the Borneo tribes were head-hunters till quite recently (I say this under the assumption that the practice has stopped, an assumption that not all would ascribe to).

This was great to watch and fun to try. The sprung bamboo mat is suspended under the floor and when the boys get a tempo going on the trampoline-like mat, they can launch one member of the group up to the rafters to retrieve a suspended item.

I've wanted to try this stick dance since some of the Orang Asli folk demonstrated it at the church Christmas celebration last year. It's quite tricky, and very entertaining to watch.

My henna tattoo didn't turn out very well- the ink ran, as I think he was rushing it a bit, because I was last. But when I was downloading the photos, I noticed he has some tattoos of his own. The one you can easily see has a bible verse: Philippians 4:13. The Malaysian government last year confiscated a load of bibles because they were written in Bahasa Malaysia, their claim being that the bible society were trying to convert Malays from Islam (this is illegal in Malaysia and any Christian doing it is breaking the law). What they did was take bibles away from indigenous people like this.

On Easter Sunday Norbert and his mother took us to church at the Sabah Seminary. I was especially excited that the ladies had baked hot cross buns, and someone had also brought a pack of mini easter eggs. I had resigned myself to the fact that I wouldn't get either this year! Not being able to get foods that you normally eat is inconvenient and at times annoying, but the hardest to adjust to are those times of the year (like Easter and Christmas) when Australian ritual and customs can't be followed. We did, however, make a host of Australian foods, including Anzac Biscuits, to take along to cell group the following Friday.

After church, they took us sightseeing around KK. We also managed to find a few geocaches and introduce Norbert to geocaching. The photo above is one of the big mosques in KK, the "Floating Mosque". Unlike the rest of Malaysia, Sabah is acually minority Moslem and I think Christianity is the predominant religion. Sabah and Sarawak are the only states that take Good Friday as a holiday- in our sate, the only Christian holiday on the calendar is Christmas Day. The small number of Moslems is not seen as a reason for the government to skimp on the cost of the mosques, and this one became especially dear to us, as from our hotel we could clearly see it over the rooves of the slum that surrounded our hotel.

Norbert thought that the slum was illegal immigrants- there are millions of them throughout Malaysia, and they don't qualify for government support so they often live in squalid conditions. His mother, however, believes that this slum is actually "locals", Malaysian citizens. I wonder what they think when they see the mosque over their rooves (it's just to the left of my picture)? The raised walkways are the only way to get from house to house, as under the houses is swampy and filled with rubbish.

Bumblebee was getting into the lift in the hotel at the same time as us. He's even taller and wider than the inventor, and had quite a time getting through the doors of the lift. We were just arriving back at the hotel for our late checkout before heading to the airport.

We left Sabah with some beautiful photos and fond memories.