Westerners From Gunung Gading Flying To The Land Below The Wind: 3rd And Final Part

After a very hectic first two days, the third started in a quite easy mode. Our 'hotel', Lampe Square of Stella Marris Church, only went quiet for the rest of the day after 9.00 AM after which we had left to tour the famed Monsopiad Cultural Village, Panampang. On our way, the tour bus again had a brief stop at Donggongon, the outskirt of Kota Kinabalu where we had our breakfast.

After every stomach was "fuelled up", the bus took us straight away to Monsopiad, a journey of about half an hour. Like the previous days, I again traded the comfort of a passenger seat for a better view of the journey, which is of course standing (most of the time) next to the driver. I captured anything which seemed "new and strange" to my eyes with my camera. Nothing along the way escaped my attention.

At Monsopiad Cultural Village, our entourage were greeted with beautiful and warm smiles as if we are presenting them with a bride or a bridegroom to be. There we toured the the compound, trading friendly gestures with other tourists of different complexion and nationalities. We were briefed on who Monsopiad was, the famous Kadazandusun warrior who managed to defend his community and "collected" forty two enemy heads as trophies. We were entertained with a number of Sabah cultural performances. In one enactment, I remember very vividly a Caucasian lady heavily sweating and shivering with fear when one performer pretended to behead her, the way Monsopiad would chop off his enemy's head.

After more than a couple of hours there, we headed back to the city where we had lunch and a couple of hours more in shopping malls and street markets looking for likely souvenirs. Some just shopped with their eyes while some others really emptied their wallets. For me, I brought back almost everything that I saw because just the morning earlier in Donggongon I had purchased an extra 8 gigabytes of HSDC memory card to store just about anything that I feel like shooting.

Our only free meal in Sabah was at Kpg Bundung, Tuaran later in the evening where we were treated with dinner in the home of our parish priest's friend. The food served were prepared in their local tradition which were highly compatible with our gastronomic preferences.

Back at Lampe Square at around midnight, we packed up straight away for we need to check in for our flight home before 6.00 AM. Sleep was sparse that night but everyone seems to be eager to see home after quite an arduous three day adventure.

We fared good bye to Sabah at 7.20 AM when we boarded a Kuching bound Air Asia flight. As like I were in the tour bus, inside the plane I was busy again taking pictures even when my seat belt was still buckled. When it was announced safe to unbuckle, my peering eyes were everywhere looking for anything that might be acceptable to my camera lens and spare memory card. Thus, all along the Kota Kinabalu-Kuching flight, my finger clicked no less than two hundred times on the Shoot Button of my camera. I did not notice though any "nabau" (Iban term for legendary gargantuan snake-like creature) swimming along tributaries of Sarawak rivers. The bird's eye view though, as far as I am concerned, were very breathtakingly heavenly.

Below are some images that I took on the third day and on our journey back home to Sarawak the following day. More pictures can be viewed here.

Like the days before, my compulsory first shot was Mt Kinabalu.

A shot of Mt Kinabalu from inside an airplane taking off.

The biggest hat in Sabah is that of a replica of a Kadazandusun headgear.

My son entering Monsopiad Cultural Village compound

The shivering Caucasian lady as earlier described.

Me the "westerner" attentively enjoying the cultural show.

Posing for the album after the cultural show and enactments.

Some of the 42 head trophies of the legendary Kadazandusun warrior, Monsopiad.

The picture says it all.

An evening view of Sipanggar harbor from a moving bus on our way to Kpg Bundung, Tuaran.

A view of an island off Kota Kinabalu airport as seen from an airplane taxiing off.

Aerial view of another island off Kota Kinabalu airport.

What I saw from the air, I share with you.

The man in the middle became the subject of my peering camera because he snores louder than the airplane's jet engines.

Somewhere near Sipanggar sea port.

Sabah, oh Sabah!

Another island off Sabah.

Brunei from above.

I don't know which river, but this is in Sarawak.

No "Nabau", only the beauty of the Rajang tributaries.

Did you see any legendary giant snake? I didn't, only heavily murky river.

For more pictures, please click here.