Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia - February 26th

Our next stop was Kota Kinabalu – known as KK to its inhabitants.  It is one of the three countries situated on the island of Borneo (the other two being Brunei and Indonesia). 

KK is the capital of Sabah, one of two British colonies (the other being Sarawak) which make of Eastern Malaysia.  Its only 800 km. north of the Equator so the weather is tropical -- very hot and humid.

We again opted for an excursion and enjoyed the commentary of our guide, Cindy. 

We visited the Tun Mustapha Building, which looks like a cylinder but is actually a glass polygon of 72 sides, supported by tensile steel rods and rises to 30 stories.  It is the only column-free structure in Asia but, personally, I didn’t find it aesthetically pleasing – but that’s just me and I’m not an engineer or architect. 

We visited the State Mosque which boasts a gold dome (don’t they all?) that can accommodate 5,000 people.  While Michael was busy taking pictures, I walked across the street to look at shop windows because I love signs.  While looking around, there was a public toilet with three ladies sitting out front accepting coins for the use of the facilities.  Michael soon joined me and I told him the ladies (with head coverings but faces revealed) were speaking Spanish and suggested he talk to them.  Well, the ladies were so excited to speak in Spanish to this obviously Western man, who really doesn’t look like an ordinary Westerner, and agreed to have their picture taken, one holding up, what we’ve seen over and over on our travels, a peace sign, and the other two delicately touching their cheeks.  They were very cute.  

We also visited the Sabah Museum, which included an indoor building where we learned that headhunting went out of fashion in 1918 (I wonder why?), and enjoyed some traditional dancing with men wearing a wide sash of grass which is worn to entice the opposite sex to dance.  There were also three different traditional island structures which the various tribes lived in years ago.  The most interesting was the one that contained a trampoline that was set into the floor about a foot or so.  Above the trampoline were various dolls and things hanging from the ceiling.  The point was for a young man to show his agility by jumping on the trampoline, reaching up and pulling down one of the items from the ceiling – again, all to impress a lady.  It’s good to know that the methods may vary, but nothing has really changed between men and women.  A quick trip to the souvenir shop and we picked up a cute magnet depicting an orangutan with its baby from “Sabah Malaysian Borneo.”   

Michael’s Observations:   I loved the village and the bamboo floor (which was scary to walk on);  it was amazing none of the passengers fell through – but I guess bamboo is really very strong.  It was really fun to see the headhunter exhibit.  The weather was nice.