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| Arriving Kota Kinabalu Harbor |
Arrived in
port this morning around 6:30 am and saw oil rigs in a newly discovered, very
large offshore oilfield, in the distance off the coast. There are many small
fishing boats of various sizes, shapes and type along with freighters in the
harbor area. The ship is docked at a
former container port, which was moved recently with plans to build hotels and
other tourism buildings on the site. Right
now nothing seems to be happening yet, perhaps not until after the next
election we are told.
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| Iconic One column Building |
Today’s
tour covered both the history and culture of the people of Sabah. Sabah is mostly how they refer to this area,
with Kota Kinabalu being the largest city.
Sabah is a state of the country of Malaysia and it shares the island of
Borneo (third largest island in the world) with another Malaysian state on the
northern part, Indonesia in the southern part and the small British-protected
Sultanate of Brunei on the northern coast.
Oil and gas is being explored and exploited in this area. There are 35 indigenous tribes in Sabah and
over 80 different dialects. This was a
British colony from 1881 – 1963 (minus the Japanese years of WW2). The British are well regarded because they
helped eradicate head hunting, educated the children and built physical and
systems infrastructure, all of which survives today. The Brits also brought Chinese here to work
for them because initially they couldn’t trust, for obvious reasons, either the
local headhunters or sea gypsies (pirates).
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| Bajau Early Sailing Boat |
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| Murut woman waving basket |
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| Murut woman beading |
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| Murut children playing |
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| Men playing bamboo mouth organ |
The major
tribe is the Kadazans, who live mostly along the coast. Then there are the Bajaus who were the known
for being pirates in prior history and also referred to as ‘sea gypsies.’ Then there are the Muruts who live in the
mountains and have held on to their culture living in longhouses - communal
style. The Sabah State Museum displayed
the arts and crafts of these groups along with the Rungus. Beautiful clothing, baskets, musical
instruments and tools (especially associated with head hunting) were on
display. A heritage village with
traditional housing and the local Muruts demonstrating their skills was very
interesting. And of course there is a
skull hut where relics of the headhunting days are hanging. The skulls were to bring good fortune to the
household. At age 15 in the old days,
you either became a headhunter or a head; there are more career choices these
days.
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| View of Water Village from Ship |
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| Typical Water Village House |
The next
stop is a ‘water village.’ These are
houses built on stilts that sit out in the water. In the neighborhood where we stop, they are
much more developed because there is a long jetty to the houses which has
street lights. One of the homes is
opened up to us to visit. The woman is
very friendly and wants us to be sure to see her family pets – a black
squirrel, a small cat, several birds and a few more cages I didn’t look
in. In my exploring, I was happy to see
that she even had a washing machine – similar to the simple devices we used on
our trip to Suriname last fall. These
water villages are mainly the Bajaus people who were sea gypsies but have since
settled in this area. While this water
village is nice and easy for tourists to navigate, the water village we can see
from our ship probably is more rustic.
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| Children wanting their picture taken |
The tour
bus makes a brief stop at the city mosque with its 16 spires covered in 24K
gold. Last stop is the Central Market. Fruits and vegetables are in one area and the
other is stalls so tightly packed you practically have to squeeze, like grease,
through the aisles; definitely not designed to Steve-scale. Chock-a-block with cloth, beaded jewelry, knock-off
purses and lots of tourist trinkets.
Along the backside of the market there is clothing for sale, and food
stands. Large fishing boats are just off
the sea wall. The market is over at noon
so we see the people packing up their wares. All speak English and are
extremely engaging, making communication easy and fun. The market area is quite a sight and set of
smells!
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| Coconut stand at market |
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| Dare to walk in this market |
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| Local fishing boats of all sizes |
In this
area is Mount Kinabalu which is over 13,000 feet and a World Heritage
site. It is 90 kilometers away so we
didn’t seek it out. It is suppose to be
a fascinating place to visit with the world’s largest flower, the world’s
largest insect and the world’s greatest number of orchid species. Maybe on another world cruise…..
Back to
the ship for a cool-down and reflection.
The people of Sabah are friendly and welcoming. Their culture is fascinating. At dinner we will hear what other people have done today in their
explorations of Kota Kinabalu’s unique offerings.
Tonight
the ship sails for Hong Kong. The ship
will be at sea for two days before arriving and spending two days in Hong Kong
harbor. Our last visit to Hong Kong was
for business in 1992. Things will have
changed!
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