Tag Archives: Kudat

Banggi Island

Pulau Banggi Revisited

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I visited Pulau Banggi (Banggi Island) in year 2006, but this time I came back for different activities, which I will blog about soon. The weather had been bad for past few years, so I was so glad about the sunny days.


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Something have changed since my last visit. When approaching the jetty, you would see the tall blue and white government building on the hill, the lower blue building next to it is a new hospital. The jetty is also improved with proper walk-in entry, so you are no longer needed to jump from the boat to jetty.


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Bonggi Resort (photo below) still remains the only accommodation for tourists. The old wooden Bonggi-style guest houses are upgraded to stronger structure, but losing a bot of traditional taste. For air-conditioned room, it is about RM75 per night, while a double-bed room with fan is RM60. 3 years ago, the air-cond room cost RM50 per night. I stayed in the fan room and didn’t like it. There is no proper ventilation, so for the whole 2 night I was breathing the recycled warm air and couldn’t sleep well. I didn’t feel safe to be asked to leave my shoes outside the door, but my worry was proven needless.


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The thing that doesn’t change is — tons of rubbish along the shore. I can understand why Tourism ministry would never officially promote this place as a tourism spot. The garbage is such an eyesore the moment the tourists land on Pulau Banggi. FYI, there is a ferry from Kudat comes to Pulau Banggi(Karakit) twice a day.


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You could easily tell (hear) that Banggi Island is a Muslim area coz of the echoing loud speaker of the mosque during praying times. Muslims do not eat pork, so the wild boars live here happily and grow in large number. The stilt shop house near the jetty is still operating, but the toilet seems unstable. It would be a very amusing view to see the toilet and the user falls into the sea. The shops also dump rubbish and food leftover into the water. Obviously, it is too dirty to swim in it.


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Majority of the residents are still living in wooden houses and water villages. Tourism would help this place to develop. At the moment, there are less than 100 tourists come to this island very month. I went to this island with a group of 10 other people. We could see that the shopkeepers were so happy when we bought from their shops. But please improve the cleanliness first.

To know how to go to Banggi Island, you may check out my previous blog.

Related Post:
Banggi Island (year 2006)

Photos taken in Banggi Island, Sabah, Malaysia Borneo

Tindakon Cave

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Finally, this is my last stop of Misompuru Homestay. We came to Terongkongan Beach (or Tindakon Dazang Beach) to see the Tindakon cave created by sea erosion. Under the rain, we moved slowly, painfully on 1KM of sandy beach to the end of the beach. The lady inside the photo is Mona, one of the local guides. I used her as a free model so many times that she wanted to poke me with her umbrella. Just kidding.


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Though the cave is our target. The view along the shore is wonderful. I saw some weird rock cut by the wind. The best thing was there was no other people around. We walked freely as if this is our private beach. The guide told me that someone would camp here during the nesting session of sea turtles. They will collect the turtle eggs then kill the mother for her shell and meat as well. It is so depressing to imagine this bloody scene taking place in beautiful beach here.


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There are some spiky odd plants grow there too. Their leaves are sharp. Quite hurt to walk among them.

To let you have an idea, below is the diagram of the Tindakon cave. Actually the cave is a deep hole created by the sea, after many years of “digging” by the sea water. The hole got bigger and deeper and became a cave. At the end, it even digs a “tunnel” and connects to the other side of the hill. There is a big opening above the cave. I’m not sure how the opening was formed. I guess it is because the cave under the hill kept on washing soil away from its bottom. At last it collapsed and became a big hole?


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Before I went there, I told the guides that I wanted to go inside the cave. Immediately I saw the expression of reluctant written on their faces. Then they came out all sort of scary reasons why I should not do it. One said there was fierce animals living inside, another said it was dangerous and slippery… Actually the more they tried to stop me, the more I wanted to try.. Later I learnt that this cave was used as a bomb shelter of Japanese during World War II.

Anyway, we went and checked out the big opening behind the hill first (see below). It is quite steep and about 30 feet deep, very hard to go down with a camera with me.


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The cave is about 30 feet away from us. I used the camera zoom to take the photo below. We could see wave movement in the cave and with a bit of light behind. Obviously, this cave connects to the sea at other side of the hill. I saw fear in the eyes of a guide who mumbled, “so creepy… like there is a ghost inside..” The cave is not really big but can fit one person. I didn’t go inside coz the cave was filled with sea water.


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Then we walked to the other side to see the cave entrance facing the sea. If you look at the photo below, the cave is under the “drain” at the right side. I decided to walk nearer to take a look, hoping that I could see the entrance of the cave. This area is called Tindakon Dazang, which means jumping fairies. According to the legend, the lucky ones would see fairies playing on the rock here and swimming at the beach during full moon.


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After I moved closer, I understood why the guides were so concern. The cave was flooded by sea water. I would be drown if I went inside. But someone did manage to walk through the cave during low tide. It was really not my day.


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The wave was quite strong and the rock was slippery. I had to keep an eye on the sea when I walked to the cave. The height of waves seemed to have timing, 1 feet, 1 feet… then 3 feet. About every 15 minutes, there would be a super big wave nearly 5 feet high. It took me by surprise. When mass volume of water rushed to me, I was freak out and thought I would fall.


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They told me there was a whale stuck inside the cave and died in the past. According to the guides, sometimes the waves were so strong that they created loud noise when they hit the cave opening. They even can see the sea water splash at other end. The villages can hear the sound from a far distance and they will know that the sea is rough.


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Now they have built a traditional longhouse nearby. It is a homestay open to tourists and you can find out more on the Facebook of Tindakon Dazang Beach.

Photos taken in Kudat, Sabah, Malaysia Borneo

Tanggui Beach

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Kudat has a lot of nice and clean beaches. At our so-called famous beaches around KK, floating rubbish such as water bottle and plastic bag are so common. Tanggui Beach is not particular beautiful but I hardly see any garbage washed to the shore.

Personally I am quite disappointed to see what is happening to our sea and islands near developed region. Years of traveling in Sabah shows me how dirty Sabah is. If we don’t work harder on the cleanliness now, the tourists will go somewhere else. We won’t see the effects now, until only few tourists are willing to come to our beaches, after some years.

Getting to Tanggui Beach takes a 20-min walk. I walked through a muddy trail and a long suspension bridge. The sea waves were quite rough that day.

The weather was really bad. It was a rainy and windy day. Most of the time, I held umbrella with one hand, another hand with camera to take photo.

Despite the cold weather, I still found some village boys swimming. When they saw me taking their photos, they were so excited, waving hands at me and even did dolphin jump. I already felt so cold on the dry land. Really can’t understand why they are so enjoyable in the cold water.

This beach gets some interesting spots for outdoor shooting. Too bad I didn’t try it due to the rainy day. I will introduce you the Terongkongan Beach in next blog. That one is really worth a visit and I spent a long time on it (a lot of photos, of course).

Photos taken in Kudat, Sabah, Malaysia Borneo

Modern Longhouse

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Continued from my blog about Misompuri Homestay in Lajong Village of Kudat town…

Anyone know what are the things in the photo below? I saw them hang in the house of this village..

The guides took me to take a look at the “modern” longhouse in Lajong Village. This longhouse was built during the time Sabah state ruled by Berjaya Party. They call it modern longhouse because the structure is quite different from the traditional longhouse of Rungus people, though both designs look alike. This is just one of the many longhouses like this in Kudat.

First, this longhouse is not totally built from wood. They use zinc material to make the roof. The locals say many trees and forest are cleared for development. Without the tree as wind shield to block the strong wind and storm, their houses really need stronger structure.

And it is taller and longer. I guess it is about 100 Metres from one end to another. The building has 2 levels. The guide showed me around. I saw some residents were socializing outside. At first I was a bit hesitate to take their photos, and I thought it was rude to take photos in private area. The people there would think tourists like me view them like an animal in the zoo cage. The guide told me it was perfectly alright and she was right. They are very friendly and don’t mind to pose for a shoot.

There are over 30 families living in this longhouse. They even have a grocery store in here.

Just drop by to say Hi and take a photo, then exit without buying anything…

Another thing that amazes me is all the “apartment” does not close the door. When I pass by, basically I can see them watching TV, sleeping, eating, and doing other private businesses inside. Personally I am not that open. I will slap the door at their nose, if I find someone are curious about my living room. Everyone looks so free and relax, even the dogs.

One of the apartments is preparing the rooms for homestay (see photos below). They even have refrigerator and TV.

There are still two more blog about the Misompuri homestay. Sorry for being slow on update. I have been sick for 2 weeks. Need rest badly as my brain does not function very well… Later.

Photos taken in Kudat, Sabah, Malaysia Borneo

Kampung Minyak (Oil Village)

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Kampung Minyak is the main reason I visited Kudat last month. I had seen hot water (hot spring) and mud (mud volcano) coming out from the ground, but I haven’t seen petroleum does that. The oil seepages are inside a tidal mangrove swamp nearby the Kampung Minyak (Oil Village). It is quite accessible, though you have to drive through a few KM of gravel and muddy road and take a 5 minute walk in a jungle trail to reach there.

Oil seepages of Kampung Minyak

The oil seepages of Kampung Minyak Village are inside a mangrove

From the photo above, you can see that there are 3 oil seepages. They are basically the same thing but look a bit difference to one another. The water at the left is darker. The one in middle is filled with murky water, probably due to the soil washed in by the rain. The one at the right is the biggest one and supposed to be the most active one. Because of vast amount of oil, the tar on top becomes harden, forming a layer of hard bitumen that seals the opening.

The smell of gasoline is quite strong here. At first impression, these wells look like the smelly ponds formed after a heavy rain around an greasy car junkyard. You can see oil films and lot of oil droplets on the water. And there are bubbles constantly float to the surface, suggest the presence of earth activity. I presume each bubble carries thin amount of oil and gas.

The surrounding soil of the seepages is greasy because of the oil deposit. They told me that in early 1900, strange black liquid seeping out from the earth astounded local community and they turned the site into a sacred ground.

Colorful reflection of oil slick

According to the research by Joanes Muda: “village elders used to offer animal sacrifices for various reasons such as for healing from illness and for protection from diseases and other calamities. One-month old newborns were also brought to the area for anointing on the forehead with the black liquid. During those days, anyone visiting the site had to sacrifice a chicken and consumed it there.” (Source: Oil seepages at Kampung Minyak, Bulletin of the Geological Society of Malaysia 56 (2010) 49 – 52)

During World War II, the Japanese also tried to mine the oil here. Then they stopped suddenly because many of them died from a mysterious sickness. Another story says that the Japanese cooked with the oil, then the rice turned into sand in the following day.

Hopefully someone can do a detail documentation about its history, as I think the stories can be far more interesting than the little oil seepages.

The oil seepages still active and release gas and oil

There was oil company had surveyed this place. May be the reserve of the fossil fuel was not big enough for them to mine it.

Greasy soil next to oil seepage

According to them, this biggest oil seepage (see below) is very deep. Nobody knows how deep it is. They used measuring stick up to 100 feet but still didn’t touch the bottom. The tar is solid to stand on, even though you can feel that it is soft underneath.

The oil seepages of Kampung Minyak Village are inside a mangrove

They also build a shelter and 50-feet boardwalk at the site. If you go there, do take a look at the beautiful mangrove trees there. In fact, there was a team of Italy TV crew went there to document the place.

Boardwalk to the oil seepages

Photos taken in Kudat, Sabah, Malaysia Borneo

Misompuru Homestay

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What we eat and how we live in city are not the lifestyle of most Sabahans, as there are more Sabahans in country side than those in city and towns. It happened that a few places that I planned to visit were near to a village that had homestay programme, so I decided to join the Misompuru homestay in Kudat region.

The arrangement is easy, just called the coordinator (with the no. listed in their web site) and tell them your arrival time then everyting is set. Some are even reachable via e-mail, and I am currently sorting out detail with another homestay in Long Pasia. The homestay that I joined was 20 KM before Kudat, the mini-bus driver dropped me at Jalan Torongkongan, saying that I only needed to follow the path, take a “short” walk to get there. Well, it ended up was a 1KM distance. Anyway, I found the place.

There are 3 villages (i.e. Kg Lajong, Kg Minyak, Kg Rampai Selatan), with a total of 58 families, in Kudat take part in Misompuru homestay. Usually the coordinator will pick our host on rotating basis, so every provider gets a fair share. A family in Kg Lajong was selected as my host. Misompuru homestay may be not well-known to most locals, but they were already featured by some foreigner media from Asia and Europe. They also have tourists from Australia, New Zealand, UK, Japan, Korea…

After being introduced to my host, Mr Sarumpit and Ms Rusiaw (very friendly Rungus people), we took a walk around the village (Kg Lajong) as a warm up. We saw the “Horn Banana” (Pisang Tanduk) at the roadside. It was so big that it would make girls horny. BTW, my “little brother” is as big as a banana (not Pisang Emas lah).

The house is a typical village wooden house. No air-con but got Astro satellite TV. Besides a room, they also prepared my meal 3 times a day, with food they planted or bought locally. I enjoyed the crabs they caught in mangrove forest. I also like their Kudat maize, though smaller but taste sweeter and softer.

Our first visit is a honey bee farm nearby. The “Beeman” showed us how he harvested the honey. But too bad that time was rainy session, the bees can’t work so they consume the honey. Otherwise I could try the honey. From what they said, the honey is very concentrated and damn sweet, unlike the watery honey we got from the supermarket.

The bees also become more protective and aggressive during bad weather. They said honey is the best cure for bee sting. From what I read from a book about a bee farm, Ajinomoto is the best cure. Which one is the best? Frankly I am not interested in finding out. You can try it yourself.

Look at the photo above. The top portion of the nest should be in gold color, if filled with honey. As you can see, it is quite empty. I forgot the name of the “Beeman” who dressed like Power Ranger. He is an ex-army. He started the honey bee farm coz of hobby and had over 10 years of experience.

After the bee farm, we visited a few other interesting places nearby (we walked nearly 10 KM in a day!), which I will blog about later. Before I went to bed, they decided to dress me in Rungus costume for fun. Cool… since I have been dreaming I am a Rungus guy who shouts, jumps and dances joyfully in Megigol Sumandai, with a long queue of pretty girls follow behind me. Probably I should wear this in city to attract some girls. But it takes a long time to dress up like this. I am gonna be late for work everytime if I have to dress like this every morning.

Overall, it was a wonderful experience though the programme was only 1 day. Actually I didn’t expect that much and I only wanted a tour guide and a place to overnight at first. But they really treated me like a friend and served me like a VIP. I had seen many tour businesses who open their lion mouth to chew tourist’s wallet, trying to get maximum profit with minimum effort, as if they own the mountain and island. You know whom I am talking about. But the homestay people try to get minimum profit with maximum effort. That really touches me.

Photos taken in Kudat, Sabah, Malaysia Borneo

Coconut Festival 2008

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This is probably the most interesting fashion show in Sabah. The Coconut Fashion Queen contest is the highlight of Pesta Kelapa (Coconut Festival) celebrated in Kudat annually. The contestants have to dress in outfit and accessories made of coconut materials. I think the contest is solely for fun and laugh, but the contestants were really serious about it.


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Actually Coconut Fest is not my main target to visit Kudat. I just timed the trip during the pesta so I had something to do at night, before I moved on to other destination the following day. In fact, there were some delay on the show, so the event ended at 11:30pm. @_@


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This was my 2nd time watching the Coconut Fashion Show. I had already blogged about this festival in year 2005. When I look back at those old photos, goodness… so bad quality (taken with a compact camera). This year I took better photos, but it really hurt my arms to hold heavier camera for hours.


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Compared to year 2005, their coconut fashion design has become more sophisticated and beautiful. I like the costume of contestant no.5, she reminds me of Sailor Moon, a Japan anime character. Though she didn’t make it to top 5, she won the title Miss Photogenic.

There was an exhibition about livestock, pet and coconut handicraft too.

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The bad weather and heavy rain almost spoiled my travel plan. I managed to visit a few interesting places such as Kampung Minyak (Oil Village) in Kudat. Later this week I will blog about them.

Related Post
Pesta Kelapa 2005

Photos taken in Kudat, Sabah, Malaysia Borneo

Once the cleanest town

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Few years ago, I would be so proud if I was from Kudat. I have visited most of the towns in Sabah, and Kudat was so unlike other towns coz of its impressive cleanliness. I hardly saw any rubbish on the street. In fact, Kudat was awarded the cleanest town of Sabah in year 2003 and 2005. Now this has changed and I saw it in Kudat last week.

Well, Kudat still remains as one of the cleanest towns in Sabah (to say, sadly). When I talked to others about Kudat, I always praised its cleanliness, as if it is the only clean place I found in Sabah. But the quantity of its junk now is so different from my last impression.

What I say here would hurt the feeling of Kudat people. But if I don’t say it, our tourists will say it anyway, I only sincerely hope that Kudat will win the war against littering and become our model town again.

Our litter is always a favourite food source of bugs. At night I saw a few millipede enjoyed the juice left by the cup behind.

Just a friendly reminder. The photos below was taken in year 2005, in a signature drive to encourage Kudat people to keep the town clean. Do not forget your promise.

Even though Kota Kinabalu city is voted as the cleanest Sabah town now, our best is still not good enough. Garbage has disappeared in many places but we still can smell it. I don’t dare to breathe deeply when I pass by areas with smelly trash can station, greasy drain behind shoplot, and “thick” spit is commonly seen on the floor.

DBKK has been working hard to keep our city clean, so don’t simply point finger at them. We shall do our part, so they can focus their resources on other areas to make our city a better place, instead of fighting tons of rubbish and hundreds of litter bugs with all their energy every day.

Photos taken in Kudat, Sabah, Malaysia Borneo