{"id":3191,"date":"2013-01-19T01:43:17","date_gmt":"2013-01-18T17:43:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mysabah.com\/wordpress\/?p=3191"},"modified":"2013-05-13T14:39:35","modified_gmt":"2013-05-13T06:39:35","slug":"tamu-market-of-kota-belud","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mysabah.com\/wordpress\/tamu-market-of-kota-belud\/","title":{"rendered":"The Vibrant Tamu Market of Kota Belud"},"content":{"rendered":"

To know the culture and lifetstyle of locals, the best way is to visit their market. Tamu<\/em> (means “Meeting”) is a traditional open-air market of Sabah<\/strong>. In the old days, there was no supermarket and shopping malls, so farmers, fishermen and hawkers would gather weekly at tamu to exchange their goods by bartering. Tamu is also a social gathering place where villagers exchange news and gossip. The tamu of Kota Belud town is the biggest and the most famous native market among tourists.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Mount<\/a>
\nKota Belud is 75 KM north of Kota Kinabalu city. To go to Tamu of Kota Belud, which is open on every Sunday from 6am to 2pm<\/strong>, you only need to drive about 1 hour on the sealed road. Along the way, you would see lush paddy fields and Mt. Kinabalu<\/a>, the highest mountain of Malaysia and Borneo.<\/p>\n

\"entrance
\nPic: the entrance of Kota Belud Tamu (See Location Map<\/a>)<\/p>\n

The tamu becomes the busiest spot of Kota Belud in Sunday morning, so it is a bit hard to find parking space. Tamu trade is carried out under the tree shade, so you will see some big trees around.<\/p>\n

\"vegetables
\nOnce you walk into tamu, you will smell a mixture of different scents like wet market. I love to experience the atmosphere here. Though it is a busy market, everyone is really relax. You can mingle with the friendly locals, and soon you will feel that you are part of tamu. That’s why my late grandmother always hanged around in tamu every week. The people here are very used to tourists.<\/p>\n

\"tropical<\/p>\n

The Tamu is more than an open market, besides local produces such as fruits & vegetables and fishes, you can find all sorts of local and imported goods, from clothing, handbags, baskets, handicraft, tobacco, traditional herb, food, snacks, wild honey, electronics, toy, and more. I saw many interesting and weird stuffs for sale too.<\/p>\n

Food & Snacks<\/h3>\n

If you plan to tour around Tamu, I advise you not to take heavy breakfast. There are rich variety of local food and snacks for you to shop and try.<\/p>\n

\"Tapai
\nPic: this wrapped food attracts a lot of honey bees. Out of curiosity, I bought one for only RM0.50 (?USD0.16).<\/p>\n

\"Tapai
\nPic: It is Tapai Rice<\/em>, a sweet rice with strong aroma of local rice wine.<\/p>\n

\"Pinjaram\"
\nPic: Pinjaram<\/em> (a.k.a. UFO Cake), a local sweet dessert with chewy texture, best served with hot coffee. Pinjaram comes with two flavors, i.e., Palm Sugar (brown) and Pandan spice (green).<\/p>\n

\"Kuih
\nPic: this is Kuih Cincin<\/em> (means “Ring Biscuit”), a famous snack that has crunchy coating, with soft and sweet content inside (taste like chocolate). Only RM2.00 (?USD0.67) per pack.<\/p>\n

\"Kuih
\nPic: you can wear the biscuit if you don’t want to eat it LOL.<\/p>\n

\"huge
\nPic: Check out this huge Tapioca Cracker<\/strong> (Keropok Ubi Kayu<\/em>)! A pack of two costs RM2.50 (?USD0.83). It has 2 flavors, the dark one is spicy.<\/p>\n

\"eating
\nThis big cracker is too fragile to bring home overseas, so you have to try it in Sabah.<\/p>\n

\"Bajau
\nThere are 20 or 30 more food items and I can’t introduce them all here. But you can see them in my 4-min video below:<\/p>\n