Asia trip Day 7 - Kota Kinabalu

Saturday, March 4

It was a bit of a quirky day. The ship arrived in early morning and docked.

At 8:40 am we are already leaving for our excursion. There was a band and dancers at the pier to greet us and we got native necklesses hanging around our necks.

We boarded a large bus and the guide Use (don't know how his name is spelled but he said to call him that, just not "Use-less") explained the buildings we saw. 

This one seems to be especially important since it is a hanging building (?). If I understood it right, there is a pillar in the middle and the floors are hanging on it starting from the top and down to the bottom.

An important mosque. But we didn't stop. Picture taken from the bus.

Not far another mosque. Here we did get out for picture taking. The pidgeons somehow made a nice photo.

Our guide Use took this photo and was very proud of it.

Then we drove to the museum. I must say that we were quite impressed. Essembly and instructions in front. A group of little children had their group photo taken on the steps. They were so cute.

This skeleton of a whale made it into the Guiness Book of Records. It was the largest of some sort. Incredible really.

We didn't have time to see the whole museum. By chance the first exhibit James and I entered was the textile part. Costumes of the different tribes were displayed and it was quite interesting. 

On a platform in the middle were 4 figures which demonstrated handcraft. I couldn't believe when I saw a lacemaker. The guide happened to be next to me and I asked him about it. It is mainly done in the middle country, at home mainly for their costume and for sale for tourists.

The sign said (in different languages): 

This display shows the process of lace-making. The process starts by first winding the golden, yellow and red threads onto wooden baton-like poles. Then the threads are arranged accordingly and pinned to a cushion. It starts with four red threads, then four golden threads followed by two yellow threads alternately. Afterwards, the pole is moved sequentially according to the thread arrangement.

The Brunei women of Papar produce or weave a striking yellow golden lace and widely used Papar Kadazan as edging on their traditional costums. 

Handmade hats.

Handmade baskets.

This is a model of a small sail boat which was used "in the old days" to transport barter-goods around the small islands of Borneo.

And then there was this room all about head-hunters. I forgot what this ethnic group was called but we were told more about it in the native village.

Leaving the museum. That had been really very interesting. We saw a lot more than I showed photos of course.

In walking distance the Native Village.

This is a long house which is more like a village because each room is for one family.

Another long-house which, in the middle, had a contraption which was almost like a trampoline. When head-hunting was not longer allowed this was used for young men to show how brave they were or how ready to marry.

The guide from another of our buses was from the tribes of head-hunters. He told James and me that there were 7 sub-tribes and they were killing each other. There were blood-feudes between these groups. He told us that people believed that when strange or bad things happened in one of the houses like somebody died suddenly when still young etc the group believed that there was an evil spirit in the house which needed to be chased out. They thought they could do this by hanging up the head of an enemy in the middle of the house.

Our last stop was a market. The guide gave us one hour. James and I didn't even need half an hour. The first part of the market was almost all about dried fish. It looked like an acre of it. That and little bags of junk food like children like for TV watching.

We hurried passed it and the next was full with lots of little stalls cramped full with all sorts of things and souveniers. I actually saw some batik fabric and ended up buying some. She took US dollars. 5 $ for 4 yards. I hope it is any good. But the place gave us claustrophobia and we walked back to the bus.

We were way to early and took a look at the back of the houses in the streets. Well, what a nice view. We were thirsty and would have liked to buy some drinks but everything was closed. All the chairs up on the tables. A ghost town. Too bad.

Back at the ship we had lunch and a beer in the shade. 

And this is for daughter HELEN ! Look at this lable at the right. Sweet Summer Corn by Humphry Slocombe (an ice cream chain in California), fresh-shucked corn ice cream.

Of course I got some thinking of you, Helen. And pistachio. But to be honest, not as good as the Singapore street vendor one way back. I also had some pistachio ice cream. 

The afternoon was a bit topsy-turvy. The Philippine authority (tomorrows stop) had announced that they were coming on board for the immigration part starting this afternoon at 4pm. This changed the itinary of the ship a bit. The lecture series time had to be changed so we went to that at 2:45pm. Her presentation was much better this time and even her jokes were funny this time. 

After that the immigration thing started. Every so often an announcement came over the intercome which sent us to the Nautica Lounge. We were deck 7 port side. Ha-ha, James knows which one is port side but for me it was the even room number side.

I think I had told you yesterday that I had trouble with my QR code. It had never shown up but I had received an email confirmation that I had completed it successfully. So I went into the line and was told  to go up to the IT center on the 10th deck. Now, why couldn't the service desk lady tell me that yesterday? It took that handsome young man 20 seconds to click here and there in the settings and it popped up.

I was told to skip the line when I came back which in the beginning made somebody mad and I had to explain but then I was quickly done.

The rest of the day went nicely. Dinner. Several different entertainments. But we were tired and fell asleep early.

Another great day. Very interesting.