Sat next to a young man in the mini van on my way to his home town Kota Belud whom I asked many questions about the town, durians, its food and whatnot. He said to try the town's favourite noodle soup ("Mi Sup"). So the next morning I set out to look for Mi Sup. It was not hard to find the soup, and when I found this food centre it seemed everyone was eating it.
We tried from different stalls. It's OK to sit down at one stall (you must order something here first) and also order something else from different stalls. The broth is different, obviously every stall has its own recipe. Chewy, fine (wheat?) noodles, chicken broth, topped with shredded chicken (or in small chunks with bones).
I walked through the market every day to find fruits or whatever.
This is what makes the food in Malaysia taste good... Shrimp paste.
In the old days they used something very simple to shred coconut or to obtain the milk manually. Now it's electric. The elderly man wanted me to make his photo. Thank you, mister!
Malaysia is deep-frying paradise. Seems almost anything can be deep-fried here.
A coconut a day. The coconut and the dried fish vendors share the same stall. He speaks English just fine, the young woman who runs the dried fish stall is very highly proficient, her mother as well. The reason we stopped by their stalls every day, besides buying a coconut, was to ask/talk about typical topics such as travelling in Sabah, food, customs, transport etc. When someone is happy to provide insightful information I take this opportunity to learn. The stallholders could answer all our questions, were super friendly and helpful. This small, insignificant town most tourists wouldn't even consider staying the night has most friendly and welcoming locals. We are glad we gave it a chance.
We love to drink coconut water and in Borneo it's so common and easy to find. The price varies so you must ask first. Anywhere between 2-7 ($0,42-$1,50 ringgits.
Fish flavoured crackers
Do I lick the pods? Garlic-flavoured whole peanuts in their pods.
Durian flavoured fruit concentrate
I like green mango salad and by now I have noticed only Malay/Muslim/tribal eateries have it.
And they always have aubergines in a red sauce
Hard boiled egg in sambal
Chicken
We had the first river tour this afternoon. Unfortunately it didn't go well at all. Started out good, though.
This is the real Sabah. Very rural, wild, life is simple, oil palm plantations dominate the landscape, people, have little in terms of luxury, but are ready to smile at each other and strangers. As a tourist you simply don't have access to many places, especially deeply rural, wild or rugged areas. You must join a tour and fill out a form disclosing all the details. Sabah is the poorest Malaysian state but (one of) the most expensive to travel in because of the tours. On top of that, some tours' prices are higher if you are a foreigner. But in general, when shopping, if there's no price on something and you are a foreigner you will probably pay more than locals, but not always, to make it clear. I'm glad it's not as bad as some other countries, though. I really hate dual-pricing/OK-to-rip-off-the-tourists system in certain countries. I tend to shun them.
Just 1 lousy photo of a macaque a few minutes into the boat ride then it started raining.
The rain picked up the pace so fast and hard we were all soaked like swimming with clothes on (the boat had a roof but open on all sides, the wind blew the big fat rain horizontally through the boat, from front to back!). Oh well, you win some, you lose some. Nature owns you nothing. It was dry again later and we could jump back in the boat to see fireflies. So many, floating like snow in the dark.
The food included in the price of the tour: sweets and buffet dinner. I didn't touch the sweets and had only a little taste of dinner.
This mountain is on the flag of Sabah. Also appears not once but twice on the state's coat of arms.
Seen from my room every morning.
There's a swallow nest under the roof (top right corner). The chicks were so loud much of the day.
Indeed!
