Got addicted with my site? Kept on reloading the page yesterday and wonder why no new blog? 😀 Smoke Head was busy last night lah. There was a Miss Malaysia Tourism (Sabah State Selection Semi-Final) competition at BED pub (Waterfront) last night. 20 sexy ladies lined up to show their nose-bleeding figures in jean, beach and evening wear. It was so HOT that I give it a three thumbs up (don’t ask me to show my 3rd thumb ok. It is too private).
After I quit smoking, I seldom go to pub. Staying there is like smoking a dozen packs of cigarette, my shirt and hair become stink, the loud music also making my ears “yih yih yih…” until now. Anyway, for the welfare of my hungry readers, I decided to sacrifice my health.
The entrance ticket costs RM15. The subzero costs me RM25+. :’-< Hai.. so expensive... Me joble$$ lah.. The competition was started at 9:45 PM and ended around 12 AM. Quite enjoyable looking around there. Even if it was a Monday, it was still crowded. I noticed many girls were also as good-looking as the beautiful girls on the stage. Ok lah, Click Here to see 96 photos of Sabah beauties:
You should thank Smoke Head. MySabah.com is now one of the web sites that got the MOST number of Sabah pretty girls photos (any objection?). And you can find many pretty faces in my other photo albums too. If you want more, below are the quick links to other Beauty Contests photo galleries. Enjoy.. 🙂
You are busy, and your friends will come to Sabah soon. They never visit Sabah before. To make them feel welcome, you want to show them around for 0.5 or 1 day. You scratch your head and think, "KK got any interesting place meh?" I believe all of us had experienced this situation before. So far I haven’t seen anyone wrote a guide to make our lives easier. Probably I can start a list here. 🙂
Since this guide is for busy people, below are my criteria to select a site:
1. It must be near to KK (less than 1 hour drive). That’s why Kinabalu Park is out.
2. It is a place that opens almost every day or at least regularly.
3. Can go there yourself without tour operator.
4. Tour only takes a few hours. No overnight required.
Place
Interest
Remark
City Tour
(Yayasan Sabah, Sabah State Mosque, City Mosque, UMS, Poh Toh Tse Buddhist Temple, Atkinson Clock Tower, Tanjung Aru Beach)
General
–
Local Food
(Anjung Selera – Likas Bay, Anjung Senja – KK City)
General
–
Shopping
(Centre Point Sabah, Wisma Merdeka, Wawasan Plaza, KK Plaza,
Central Market)
Open daily from 9.30am to 5.30pm. Elephant Ride: 10.30am – 11.30am and 3.30pm – 4.30pm only
If you plan properly, you can even go to 4, 5, 6 places in a day. To make the list more complete and useful, please post your comment if you have any other recommendations. I believe many of you know KK a lot better than me.
I have tried out the close-up len with my Sony Cybershot DSC-H1. It is like a dream comes true. Now I am able to take very close picture of tiny fiddler crab. Below is the picture of my favorite fiddler crab. See the three dots on its back? Look like a face, isn’t it? So cute.. I also have taken many photos of other fiddler crabs. They got red, yellow, orange, blue, green, black, white, brown and purple colors. I have written an article about fiddler crabs of mangrove forest and will send it to the local newspaper tomorrow (hope they will post it). I would like the public to see the beauty of these crabs and know the importance of protecting our mangrove forest, the home of these beautiful creatures.
Two male fiddler crabs fighting:
Photos taken in Kota Kinabalu Wetland Centre, Sabah, Malaysia Borneo
From the newspaper, I heard that there would be a grand launching for this jewellery fair at the Magellan Sutera Hotel today. There are exhibitors from Singapore, Hong Kong, Japan, India, Switzerland, Thailand… Personally I am not quite interested in jewellery coz wearing it will not make me look prettier. It will attract the robbers and kidnappers, more than beautiful girls. But seeing many liang moi (pretty girls) wearing expensive jewellery would be a cool photography subject, so I went there in the morning. I am quite happy with what I got below.
To share my happiness, click the individual thumbnail below to see larger photo. Click Harder, Ooohh.. yESs… (sorry if the jewellery doesn’t look clear coz I focus on something else):
Haha… I heard that many guys were so scared and left the town because of this exhibition. Those who go with their wifes or girlfriends will seek for hiding place once they walk in (If the couple doesn’t split up, I am quite sure that they are not married). Most of the time you will see a group of women look for best bargain, but their men missing in action. I do not have any wife or girlfriend, so I am safe.
I am not able to show the photos of the jewellery coz I can’t. When I point the camera to their jewellery, most exhibitors, especially those from overseas, will be so nervous that as if my camera will suck away their diamond. “Are you from the press?” “No, I am not.” “No, you cannot take picture…” They explained that they worried others would copy their brilliant design idea. Oh, I see… Then why they asked if I was from the press? Obviously they got two set of answers. If I am from a media, they would allow me to take picture and publish it on the newspaper. Isn’t that end up more people copy their idea? I don’t understand their funny logic. Well, nevermind, jewellery is not my main shooting target.
I was almost blinded by the sparkling of jewellery until I walked to a corner. I opened my eyes and saw dozens of ugly green stones with irregular shape (see picture below). They caught my attention coz they didn’t shine. I asked the exhibitor, “Heck, what is this? They look like broken pieces of beer glass bottle.” The exhibitor said, “These are Moldavite (glass meteor). They were formed by condensed vapors after being hit by a meteorite (shooting star)… They contain energy that can bring good health and fortune to you (Bull s**t!!! Yeah right), blah, blah, blah… (More bull s**t)” Sound interesting and I like jewellery that is different from others, so I bought it. The small one costs RM70. I believe it will bring me good health and fortune.
Photos taken in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, Malaysia Borneo
I went to the Tamu Besar (Big Native Market) of Kota Belud on last Saturday and Sunday (Sep 24-25). Actually I have been waiting for this annual grand event since May. The Tamu Besar is one of the most popular festivals in Sabah. After the visit for 2 days, the 1GB memory card of my digital camera went full. No kidding, my digicam was so busy working that it almost melted (Go ahead, so I will have an excuse to buy a DSLR). I was really glad I went there. Next year I will come again.
For those of you who don’t know “Tamu”, it is a weekly local market, where all the local farmers, fishermen and vendors sell their products such as vegetables, fruits, fish, shrimps, livestocks, traditional medicines, food, drink, cloth, shoes, handicrafts and almost every daily-use items. A truly village type setting. You are not only seeing the Tamu, you can smell the Tamu. The Tamu Ground of Kota Belud is the biggest Tamu in Sabah and open on every Sunday. Kota Belud is just northeast 70KM away from Kota Kinabalu. Due to the good road condition, you can get there by car in only an hour.
I can only use three words to describe this festival: Colorful, Interesting and Fun. “Tamu Besar” is the name of the festival that is more than just a Tamu. Bajau people is the second largest indigenous group in Sabah (first is KadazanDusun, third is Murut) and they are very popular on their colorful costumes, horsemanship and handicrafts. Tamu Besar is a 2-day event that let you see all these.
There are 5 things that you must check out during the Tamu Besar:
Bajau Horsemen: See 100 Bajau horsemen in action then you know they are also known as the Cowboys of the East. Each horse is decorated with color mat and different design. It is an exciting day for the horsemen, tourists and horses.
Bajau Beauty Queen Pageant: Beautiful Bajau and Iranun ladies, with unique and ornate costumes, line up for contest.
Animals Sport: The buffalo racing and game with horses are really eye opener and make you laugh out loud.
Tamu Ground: The biggest local market with lot of interesting stuffs not found in shopping mall.
Performance: The colorful traditional dance performance by local Bajau, Iranun, Dusun, Malay and Chinese people.
If you miss the event, don’t worry. I have shared over 200 photos and 7 video clips in this web site for your viewing pleasure. My Streamyx broadband is not quite stable recently. It took me 4 hours to upload only 35MB of files. Such a pain… It always happens a few days every month, as if it got PMS. Anyway… here you go:
The next 360° Panoramic Virtual Tour that I would like to introduce is the Puu Jih Buddhist Temple, which is the highest temple in Sandakan. This is the second time I visit Puu Jih Temple. The first visit was more than 10 years ago, but I could not forget the breathtaking view of Sandakan Bay from there. For me, the whole building, from the door to the roof, is like a piece of art. The outstanding artwork is nicely integrated into the great scenery.
Inside you feel the greatness of the Buddha, when you walk outside, you feel the greatness of the world, then you feel great, haha.. Just a few hundreds meters away from Puu Jih Temple, there is a Di Zhang (God of Earth) Temple, which is surrounded by sky, mountains and forest. Really a nice concept. Puu Jih Temple is just a few KM away from Sandakan city. If you plan to take a city tour, you must not miss this attractive spot.
1) Emergency lighting
You know the quality of our electricity power supply. You should have candles and torch light ready at home, in an obvious spot anytime. I noticed some families even use a car battery to power up fluorescent and fan. But the end result is still the same, what can you do when there is no electricity? It will be so warm that you don’t have mood to do anything. Actually I am quite interested in knowing what others do during blackout. Please share your tips…
2) Power Generator
Running a manufacturing factory, meat storage, bakery shop, fish farm and closed-system chicken farm is considered as very HIGH RISK businesses in Sabah. You can lose thou$ands overnight. And guess what? SESB will not pay you a cent as a compensation. They will advise you to sue the monkeys and tree branches. If you insist, you should have budgeted for a power generator.
We never understand those in Peninsular Malaysia makes big HuHa about a 2-hour power down. WHAT is the BIG deal? Just look at part of our power outage records in the past two months:
Jul 12: Sandakan, power down for continuous 60 hours
Jul 13: Lahad Datu, power down for continuous 5 hours
Jul 14: Papar, power down for continuous 8 hours
Aug 20: Tawau, power down for continuous 3 hours
Aug 22: Kota Kinabalu, power down for continuous 5.5 hours
Aug 27: Kudat, power down for continuous 12 hours
And not to mention those hundreds of small small cases. Two hours? Sub Sub Water lah. SESB will classify it as a small case (minor disruption). Also not good enough to become a news headline (otherwise all the column will be full). I am looking for diesel-run aircon, TV and refrigerators but cannot find any on the market. Anyone got any info on Home use Generator? Any solution?
3) Water Filter
You cannot live more than the age of 40 if you drink unfiltered water in Sabah. It is more like a mud water. The water is also “poisonous” due to Chlorine. The fishes will die if you put them in the tap water. When you syok syok taking hot shower, the Chlorine will follow the steam gets into your body. Research shows that chlorinated tap water correlated with higher risk of miscarriage, cancer… Just install a water filter and see the filter turns black in a week. Clean water is so precious in Sabah. The mineral water is more expensive than the petrol (how come we sound like a desert region). I don’t understand why they sell so well coz our mud water got more minerals.
4) Water Tank
Many houses here got water tank to store water. You will really appreciate it when the water pressure is low. Having no water is worse than having no power (e.g. cannot cook, cannot bath, cannot flush toilet). For some regions that use power water pump, they will have big headache during the power outages, coz the pump stops working, the water will stop coming too… So don’t shake hand with others when there is no water…
5) Home Alarm / Security System
I don’t know you, but most of the houses in my taman were broken in by thief before, some more than twice. 20 years ago in Sabah, we could leave our doors opened and it was safe. Today it is the opposite. From time to time, you may see strange outsiders look look outside your house. Be careful oh, that night…
If you do not have a security system, at least get a watch dog. I say “Watch Dog”, not the kind that you can hug the whole day and can put into pocket. A watch dog means a 100-pound BIG dog that has the ability to tear you apart (the best is the one that is so fierce that it also bites you, haha). Get a black one so it becomes a stealth killing machine at night.
6) UPS (Uninterruptable Power Supply)
If you have a computer, get a UPS for it. Besides preventing you from losing your unsaved work, it can stablize the power supply. The power fluctuation happens very oftenly, sometimes you don’t even notice it. The power trip can do serious damage to your “sensitive” electronic equipments such as refrigerator, air-con, computer… I have replaced the damaged computer hard disk twice because of the power trip.
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.
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.
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.
