Category Archives: Festivals

Coconut Festival (Pesta Kelapa) of Kudat

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Coconut Fashion Show
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

Orchid De Villa, Horticultural Show 2005

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I went to the Orchid De Villa Horticultural Show 2005 on Aug 27 – 29. I would say this is one of the best places to hang around with your family during weekend. The only problem is the road condition. After my 20-year-old car running on 1 KM of gravel road full of mud, holes, rocks and dust, I was almost faint when I reached another sign saying “Orchid De Villa 2 KM”. Fortunately, if you don’t have a 4 wheel, you can take a FREE mini bus in front of the Sin Hin Bookstore in Inanam so your car does not need to suffer the 3 KM gravel road. The bus will move whenever it is full or it waits long enough.

It was an interesting experience. Many activities such as Little Miss Orchid De Villa, Children Body Building and other shows were organised during the exhibition.


I also took a walk in their orchid garden. Actually I was a bit disappointed in the beginning because I didn’t see a lot of blooming orchids around. Luckily I saw Mr. Liew (the owner) and his wife before I left. He asked if I found anything interesting to shoot. Before I answered, he already pointed out 5 to 6 orchid flowers NEXT to me. “Did you see this?”, “Did you see that?”… I was a bit embarrassed to say No coz I didn’t pay close attention to my surrounding. The flowers were so near but I didn’t “see” them.

Many wild orchids are very small and low profile. They could be hiding in the grass, under the leaves, and other corners. You could not discover them without paying very close attention. He also mentioned that’s why many visitors were disappointed and said they saw “nothing”. For me, this is an important lesson. Not all beautiful thing is OBVIOUS. They might be very near to us, but all are ignored by busy, insensitive and impatient city people like us. Probably we can learn to pay more attention to the little thing around us, such as the new haircut of our wife, the good little thing others do for us silently… then we would appreciate the world better.

I also visited their zoo. The Sep 16 Malaysia Day is coming. There is a bird would like to say something to greet you. Click Here to hear what it said (48 KB).

Photos taken in Inanam, Sabah, Malaysia Borneo