Category Archives: Culture & History

Skull of Orang utan

Monsopiad Village and House of Skulls

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Hope the 360 degree Mount Kinabalu Panoramic views did not make your mouth wide open, cool huh? Before you close your mouth, I still have more Panoramic Virtual Tours to show you. Can you digest fast enough? 🙂

Yes, the next one is Monsopiad Village in Penampang. Monsopiad is the name of the most popular Kadazan headhunter, a legendary warrior who harvested 42 human skulls. In the past, the more skulls you owned, the more heroic you were. The headhunters believed that the spirit of the victim would trap in the skull and protected them. Today there is no more headhunter in Borneo, but you still can see the 300-year old human skulls displayed in the House of Skulls of Monsopiad Village. Monsopiad Village is one of the BEST tourism spot in Kota Kinabalu but is not very well-known among the Sabahans. Don’t know why…

Actually I feel a bit guilty to publish this virtual tour because it is so thorough and complete that — after you watch it, you can close your eyes walking in the village and know where you are, like you had been there. I have posted 150+ photos, 4 video clips, and 1, 2, 3, 4… 10 panoramic tours for this village. Goodness… I hope they will not kill me.


Click Here to Start the Tour

Video Clips of Traditional Dances
BTW, another thing that I would like to highlight is — I find that the Kadazan Sumazau video clip is the most popular download item of MySabah.com.

To make your life easier (find them all in one place), I list all the links to the Sumazau video clips below:
(1) Orchid De Villa, (2) Pesta Kaamatan, (3) Monsopiad Village.

If you are interested in Murut’s Magunatip (Bamboo Dance), I also got four versions:
(1) Monsopiad Village, (2) Pesta Kaamatan, (3) Orchid De Villa, (4) TV3 Carnival (by kids).

If you visit Monsopiad Village, normally they will show you Sumazau, Magunatip and Sazau (by Kadazan Papar) dances. For more video clips of traditional dances of Sabah indigenous people, you may check out my Pesta Kaamatan page.

Photos taken in Penampang, Sabah, Malaysia Borneo

Coconut Festival (Pesta Kelapa) of Kudat

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To recognise and appreciate the significant contribution of coconut, the 9th annual Pesta Kelapa (Coconut Festival) was organised successfully from Sep 8 to 11, 2005 in Kudat town. The event was held in Tomborungus Field, somewhere in the centre of the town, very convenient. If you plan to go to Kudat by bus, you can catch up the 8 AM or 1 PM bus near the bus terminal of Padang Merdeka. The drive will take 3 hours and the ticket costs about RM15 (one way). FYI, the 8AM bus from Kudat to Kota Kinabalu is available in front of the Ria Hotel. For locals, you would prefer to get there with your car as the road condition to Kudat is good.

If you find this event interesting, do not miss it next year. I heard that they would celebrate the 10th Pesta Kelapa (in year 2006) in big scale. The Coconut Fashion Queen Pageant, which had children and adult categories held in different day, is really something unique, creative, and of course, fun. There were over 50 coconut dress designs shown, and you can see the complete collection in this site. Somehow I think I should get a trophy or something. The Pesta Kelapa has been around for 9 years and I guess I am the only one who creates a online photo gallery for the Coconut Fashion Show. 🙂

There were some small-scale sport events and exhibition during daytime. The number of exhibition booths were much lesser than the Sago Festival and GATA Festival. A main thing that was left out was the opportunity to try out different exotic food and dishes made of coconut, like the Sago Festival. I expected to eat a lot of coconut food but ended up having my meals at the restaurants nearby. But overall, the event is well done.
Check out the photo gallery…

Photos taken in Kudat, Sabah, Malaysia Borneo