Mahani picked us up at 10:45 am and we drove south along the coastal highway a small distance past the airport. We were well out of the downtown area where the buildings were not as new. There were a lot of dealerships in all kinds of products and materials - from automobile sales, tractor sales, cement and building supplies, grocery wholesalers, a bottling plant, and warehouses. Our route followed the narrow gauge railway line - the only one is Sabah for a bit.
We turned off the coastal highway onto a paved narrow 2-lane road that went to the Mon Sopiad cultural centre. We were slowly climbing off the coastal plain and into the hills as the road twisted and wound its way to our destination. As we passed through a number of kampongs (villages), each side of the road was clustered with well-maintained and neatly groomed houses. The houses were older and built on stilts with the construction materials ranging from wood to concrete. Interspersed as we climbed higher were small rice paddies. Some of these were farmed by the local people but they were dependent on the rains for irrigation as there were no irrigation systems or sources of water that they could rely on. The countryside became quite hilly over a short distance of about 20 km from the coast. It was obvious that the colonials wouldn't dare venture off the coastal plains to climbthrough the thick jungle to try and reach places like this. It is little wonder that Britian didn't even try to exploit the interior o f North Borneo (Sabah) and only stayed along the coast. The building of the roads from the coast certainly had a big impact on these small villages and tribes - whether for the better remains to be seen.
Monsopiad was a famous head hunter who lived over 300 years ago. He was famous because he had taken the skulls of 42 enemies. It was the tradition of his tribe to collect the skulls of their enemies who had attacked them as a warning to other invaders that they would lose their head. More importantly, the took the skull of only the leader of the invaders. If the invaders had the audacity to attack them, then their leader must have been a powerful leader. Their belief was that if they acquired the skull of the leader, then the strength, courage and power of the leader would become part of their strength, courage and power. Ceremonies were held when the skull was being dried in the sun on the end of a split bamboo stick to encourage the spirit of the leader to become a good spirit and help the tribe.
We started off in the large hall with a series of music and dances which finished with a bamboo dance. This required the dancer to be very adroit in avoiding four bamboo poles which would periodically clash together in time to the rhythm ofthe music. If you didn't move your feet fast enough, you would end up with a smashed ankle.
We then had a tour of the skull hut where the 42 skulls of Monsopiad were suspended on a long bamboo pole hung at the top of the ceiling parallel to the eave of the roof. Around the room there were photos of the last ritual of the head hunters and their chief spiritual leader - a woman who, at that time was over 75 years of age. If any of the villagers acquired religion (Muslim, Christianity, etc), they would then lose their ability to speak to the spirits. As most of the villagers had acquired religion, the rites of these people were now dieing. The last ceremony was held in 2002.
From the skull hut, we were shown how rice was harvested, stored, cooked and brewed into rice wine. We picked up a gentleman, an East Indian who had lived in Britain but had moved to the University of Brunei several years ago. He had been returning from a conference overseas and was returning home via KK. Since he had a 5 hour layover in KK, he had taken a taxi to the village to see the sites. We offered him a ride back to the airport. We were on our way again by 1:30 pm, went to the airport and then took a main highway into the interior of Sabah. Actually, we were traveling parallel to the coast back to Mahani's house. As we traveled along this main highway, on each side of us were large fields of rice paddies with combines on each side combining the rice. As with Canada, the small farms had been consolidated into larger highly mechanized farms as was apparent from the size of the tractors and the use of combines to harvest the rice.
We made our way back to KK and went to a Chinese place, the Kidi Kopi Dat Sing restaurant, for lunch. This was located in one of these 3-storey buildings that on sees so frequently in other countries. One side to the other was occupied by this open-air restaurant. Both ends were open, plastic tables and chairs filled the space that wasn't occupied by the four stalls in each corner. You could order drinks, noodles for lunch - drinks from one place, noodles from another.
We returned to Mahani's and rested for a bit out of the heat. We were on the road again by 4:30 to find the Orchid de Villa. Putri came with us. As it was raining, we only scouted out the route to the Orchid farm. We then made our way along the inner highway and traveled north along the coastal highway looking for the crocodile farm. We stopped off at the Rosa Ria resort that is managed by Shangri-La resort group to look around. This 500 room resort is situated right next to the coast with a broad sandy beach. It even has its own small zoo. We went through a fish farm and saw how they raise prawns in these large pools - very similar to a trout farm. There were little paddle-wheel boats connected to the electricity which kept the water churning to add oxygen to the water. We found the crocodile farm, and then returned to Mahani's where we had a bit more of a rest. Supper was with Tan and Jimmie. Lanh had returned from Kuala Lampur and he joined us for supper. We ended up talking politics - in particular, US foreign policy. Mahani's driver drove us back to our apartment around 10:30
