OK, my article, about Water Festival in Semporna, was published on Overseas Chinese Daily News’s Sunday paper (May 14, 06) again. You can click the picture at the left to read it. Sorry lah, if you can’t read Mandarin (Chinese).
It is less fun to write for newspaper coz everything has to sound politically correct. I hope I can joke a bit, make more personal comments though. I have submitted another article about Lundayeh Festival yesterday. Hope they will publish it. The Lundayeh people were really helpful and nice to me last time, so I hope I can do something to help them. That will be the last article I write for newspaper. I think I have gotten 7 articles printed on newspaper. Interesting experience but very time consuming.
It is quite late to blog about it coz it has happened for more than 10 days (since May 5). Sabah Fest was started annually since 1988, but this was the first time I watched it. I would say it is the most colourful and best cultural show of Sabah. I will come again next year.
Though the cultural show (8pm – 10pm) was only two hours, it gave you a very good overview of the traditional dances and colourful costumes of Sabah indigenous people such as Bisaya, Murut, Bajau, Idahan, Suluk, Kadazan, Lotud, Rungus, Orang Brunei, Dusun Tobilung. Tell you, I have seen all these costumes and dances, after I travelled almost a year to many places in Sabah like Kota Belud, Semporna, Lahad Datu, Kudat, Kota Marudu, Sipitang… Now you only need to pay RM10 (USD2.50) ticket to watch all these comfortably, in an air-cond ballroom. So lucky lah you.
As a Sabahan, if all you know about Sabah indigenous people is only Sumazau and KadazanDusun, your knowledge is really poor man. I have seen many locals who can’t even differentiate the costumes of Bajau and Murut. If I am not mistaken, Sabah got over 30 ethnic groups, and each of them may have sub-ethnic that they may speak different language or wear different costume. For example, KadazanDusun got 16 sub-ethnics such as Dusun Tatana, Dusun Tindal, Bajau got 20 such as Suluk, Iranun, Murut got 14 such as Tagol, Paluan. If you sum up all these, it will be more than 100 groups. So far I don’t see any book has complete text + photo documentation on all Sabah ethnic groups.
In normal Sabah cultural show, one or more of the dances below are popular choices for performance:
1) Sumazau by Kadazan Penampang
2) Sazau by Kadazan papar
3) Magunatip (bamboo dance) by Murut
4) Limbai by Bajau
In Sabah Fest, you will see more: Click Here to see photos of Sabah Fest 2006 >>
Before the show began, all the dancers were lining up from the entrance to the hall, to welcome all the guests with friendly greeting, dances, and traditional musical instruments. I walked back and forth many times, to see if I could name their ethnic and took some photos of them. Many of them were really the village people so they could be a bit shy, but very willing to cooperate. I know coz I saw my Idahan wives from Lahad Datu (just kidding), haha… they still recognised me. So happy to see them again.
If you miss Sabah Fest, don’t worry. You can see more indigenous people dress in their beautiful costumes at Penampang KDCA from May 30 to 31. Last year I took a lot of photos and post them all here. According to my web report, it is always the TOP visited page every month. FYI, it is the first photo gallery of MySabah.com (posted in June 2005). My first blog was started in August 2005, so I didn’t blog about it. One of the goals of MySabah.com is to provide the most photos of Sabah people (especially beauties). Hope you will continue to support me by introducing this site to your friends.
OK, some of you may have been waiting for this. The photos of Unduk Ngadau Beauty Pageant in Tawau on May 6, 2006. There are 4 reasons I report for Tawau: (1) I want to blog a Unduk Ngadau competition in west coast, (2) to avoid taking same event pictures with other photographers, (3) looking for excuse to go to Tawau, (4) want to marry an Unduk Ngadau. FYI, there are more than 30 districts around Sabah organised their local Unduk Ngadau competition.
The Sabah Tourism Magazine (Page 14, Issue: May 2006, Volume 63) wrote about the meaning of Unduk Ngadau. I post it here for your knowledge: “The Unduk Ngadau embodies the spirit, beauty and personality of Huminodun who, according to local legend, was the self-sacrificing daughter of the almighty creator Kinoingan. She was sacrified to the land so that her people would not starve. Her head gave rise to coconuts, her flesh nourished the paddy fields, her blood became red rice, her fingers ginger, her teeth maize, her knees yams and other parts provided a variety of edible plants.”
There were 16 KadazanDusun and Murut ladies competed in this event. Below is the final result of Unduk Ngadau Beauty Pageant for Tawau:
Unduk Ngadau 2006 (Tawau): Diana Yaqub (No. 15)
1st Runner-Up: Eneycia Doulus (No. 4)
2nd Runner-Up: Jessy Liew (No. 6)
Miss Favourite: Cindy Celestine (No. 12)
I never knew that my visit was unexpected. The Teck Guan Cocoa Museum is managed by a private company named Majulah Koko Tawau Sdn. Bhd. at Tanjung Batu Laut. It is a mini museum inside the Teck Guan cocoa factory. When I got there in the morning, the museum was locked (during their opening hour). A bit puzzled, I went to their office nearby to see if I need to buy any ticket to get in.
Their staffs were a bit surprised of my visit. According to them, any visit to the museum is arranged in advance and done in group. Each person will be charged RM10 that includes entrance to the museum, refreshment, a 20-minute video presentation, and a short tour to the cocoa factory. They also got a cocoa village (in Quoin Hill) where you can stay and see the cocoa plantation and seed processing.
They are not quite ready for walk-in visitor like me. Probably knowing that I went all the way there from KK, they were very kind and arranged a tour for me (free). The ground floor is a small showroom that exhibits cocoa fruits, cocoa end products, and some info on cocoa history. I was brought to a room to watch a 20-minute video to learn the origin, history, plantation, manufacturing processes and use of cocoa.
Then a friendly guide took me for a tour in their factory. She briefly explained the processing steps and the function of each machinery. The two primary output of the cocoa are Cocoa Butter and Cocoa Cake (powder). Cocoa Butter is more high quality and cost 3 times more expensive than Cocoa Cake. That’s why white chocolate, with cocoa butter as key ingredient, is more expensive. Nestle (Ovaltine), Milo, M & M Mars are their customers too.
They were curious to know how I found out the information about their museum coz they haven’t released such information to the press or media. I told them that their cocoa museum has been listed in the Sabah Tourism magazine for more than a year already.
Below is the opening hours of the Teck Guan Cocoa Museum:
Mon – Fri: 8AM – 11:30AM, 1:30PM – 4:30 PM
Sat: 8AM – 12PM
Sunday: Closed
To arrange any visit, you can call them at +60-89-775566 ext 2601.
If you are not a Tawau’s local, it is a bit hard to find Tawau Hills Park (Taman Bukit Tawau), and there is no bus going there. Tawau Hills Park is a recreational and national park about 20 KM away from Tawau town. During weekend and Sunday, many families and youngsters would go there to swim and BBQ. The locals normally call this place “Abacca”, “Table”, “National Park”, “Taman Negara”, “No. 4 Gudang”, “四號麻房” (Chinese)… If you say “Tawau Hills Park”, they will look at you with a “Huh? What?” expression, like you ask for direction to another planet.
To get there from Tawau town, go to the road that leads to “Jalan Muhibbah” and “Jalan Air Panas” roads. You will come to a few roundabout until you reach the one like the picture below. Take the left turn, you will see a yellow sign “Old Folks Home” after 10 meters, go straight for a few KM, near the end you will reach a T junction that got a “Muhibbah Jaya” sign at your right, turn right, go straight for quite a long way, you will passby Taman Semarak, Sungai Tawau bridge, big Golden Hope signboard… then pay attention to your right side, you will see the “Taman Bukit Tawau” sign, follow the sign to drive for another 8 KM, you will arrive Tawau Hills Park.
There is not much information about this park on the Internet. I thought it was just a small park. It is a very very big national park, with the size of 28,000 hectares. You need to pay RM3.00 entrance fee to enter the park. Most people go there to swim and picnic. There is a restaurant inside the park too. If you look at the map below (from the leaflet printed by Sabah Parks), you can see that there are lot of places you can go.
The popular extra choices are jungle trekking 2.7 KM to Gelas Hill Waterfall, or 3.2 KM to Sulphur Hot Spring. If you are lucky, on the way you can spot wildlife such as clouded leopard, hornbills, pheasants, giant tree squirrel. You may want to wear leech socks. For those who are adventurous, they can take the 10++ KM jungle route to climb a mountain. I am not sure if you need to get a climb permit and hire a local guide in advance, you may call the park at +60-89-918827 for info. You can stay in their jungle lodge (RM40 per night) or chalet (RM200 per night), or even sleep in the tents in camping ground for RM5.00 per night.
I was not so lucky that day. The weather was bad. I wanted to go to the Gelas Hill Waterfall and Sulphur Hot Spring. Their staff said these trails were next to the river. If the river flooded, I would trap in the forest. I really wanted to go, so I checked with a life guard at the riverside. He said it was quite safe to go. When I planned to move, it started to rain heavily. Well, my mission failed so not many photos were taken. The only place I can go is the small Tawau Hills Waterfall in the park. Due to the heavy rain, the waterfall was very big and strong. Quite a view. I have taken a video clip and share it here. Too bad, hopefully I can come back again one day.
“Aunty, why do you keep tiger as a pet?” It was quite a shock to see this 10 KG super fat cat, La Kiah (means “Spider” in Hakka). He is 9 years old and lives in the house of my Tawau aunty.
Don’t be fooled by his look. He eats very little. He is also very active and still able to climb to the roof. He is so cute and adorable, but heavy. Hugging him is like carrying a sack full of rice.
I tried to shoot his picture from different angles, so you can see clearly how huge it is. For the first picture, I even put a 1-foot ruler next to him. Do you notice that the rice cooker looks so small next to him?
At first I thought there was only one hot spring in Tawau. Actually there are two hot spring in Tawau. One is the big sulphur hot spring in Taman Hills Park. You need to walk 3.2 KM in the jungle to find it, so it is not famous among Tawau people. The second one is the small hot spring at Air Panas Road, and it is more popular.
Therefore, if you say you want to go to Hot Spring, the Tawau people will show you the direction to the small hot spring, not the big one in Tawau Hills Park. Damit… that’s why two Tawau people pointed to opposite direction when I asked for the way to hot spring. That made me very lost. Actually both of them gave the right direction, one to small hot spring, another one to Hills Park hot spring.
Clear? To get there from Tawau town, look for “Jalan Air Panas” and go straight, until you see the “JLN. HOT SPRING EXTN” sign at your right (see picture below), turn into that road, go straight again, when you see the “J. AYER PANAS LAMA BATU 3” sign, go straight for 50 meters and you will see a small wooden bridge next to the roadside.
Just cross the bridge and follow the path (see picture below). After you walk about 50 meters, you will see a bridge made of log. Congratulations! You have reached the hot spring.
“Huh? Where is it?” was my first response when I seemed to come to a dead end (see picture below). What I saw was just a small and stink river.
Suddenly I heard sound under the bridge. When I looked down, I saw some bubbling points in the river. The longkang (drain) smell is actually the smell of sulphur. Then I saw steam coming out from the bubbling points. I was told that the hot spring water was hot. Too bad I didn’t bring an egg to test if it can boil the egg. There are some white substances deposit near the bubbling points. I don’t know what it is. It is interesting but this hot spring is really small. Many locals don’t even bother to look at it.
The last time I went to Tawau was so many years ago. Whenever I wanted to visit my friends in Tawau, they would say, “why you come to Tawau Oh? Nothing to play here leh.” Tawau is too far away from Kota Kinabalu city and got no attractive tourism spot . I know they got a Cocoa Museum and a Hill Park. Unfortunately, even people from Tawau also don’t know much about them, so I really had doubt if these places worth a visit.
I have traveled in many places of Sabah. To “conquer” the whole Sabah, Tawau seems like a must-go destination, just for the sake of making the list complete. Luckily, there was a Tawau level Kaamatan (Harvest Festival) celebration on May 6. So I found more good reason to go to Tawau. Besides, I got an aunty stays in Tawau.
The next thing is to choose a transport. Taking a bus from Kota Kinabalu to Tawau will cost RM55 per trip, and the ride takes 9 hours. Getting there by plane will cost RM120+ per trip, but it takes only 40 minutes to fly to Tawau. So I took the plane. RM240+ is quite a rip off price, consider it is enough to buy a AirAsia ticket to fly to Kuala Lumpur. Once I arrived Tawau airport, I still had to pay RM10 to get a bus from airport to the town centre, which took another hour.
I took a walk in Tawau town. Tawau is really a big town. I think that the road system in town is a bit messy, like not systematic and well-planned. There are many faces of foreigners who look like Indonesians. I walked to the Dewan Masyarakat Tawau. They would have the Kaamatan celebration there that night, so I wanted to survey the place. Yeah, you can expect photos of Tawau Unduk Ngadau Beauty Pageant here later.
My Tawau aunty lent me her old car, so I could roam freely in town and made it felt young once again (but the wheels almost went off). She only showed me the way back home once, then I was totally on my own. I had no problem to drive home, even in the dark. Not because I have 6th sense or great memory, I got pen and paper mah, hahaha… The faintest ink can beat the strongest memory. Why burden my brain so much? What I need to do is just taking note of the important junctions and building. Now I only remember that Tawau road got a lot of roundabout and bridges. My aunty asked me not to lock the car at night. The car window was broken twice coz the thief tried to look for something in the car. Might as well just leave the car unlocked for them. When I was staying in Tawau, there was power blackout of one to two hours every day. I could hear that Tawau was sighing.
Tawau may not have a lot of places to travel but it is definitely one of the most place to eat seafood. My aunty and her husband treated me dinner at Sabindo. We had some prawns, fish and seashells, cost about RM80 for 3 persons. The taste? Not bad lah..
