Tropical Winter, Mon, 28 Aug 2017 | written by Simon
Simon at a City, Museum, Park in Asia, Malaysia

The last morning in Borneo. I will miss these nights, warmer than most summer days in Edinburgh…

I had a lazy morning, took my time to have tea and breakfast, chat with the hostel owner and a couple guests, laugh about me borrowing shampoo yesterday.
By 10am I left to the Sunday market that had set up nearby. Much more interesting than the tourist tat market! A much greater selection of stuff, some food, you could even get pet animals there. But my shopping spree plan didn’t work out. Basically, this place is way more expensive than India, and so it doesn’t make sense to repeat the manoeuvre with buying a check in bag and filling it with loads of cheap clothes and stuff for later. But then, buying stuff is much easier – none of the pushy insistence I remember from India, and things have actual prices. I walked for a bit, got some clothes, had a delicious pineapple juice mixed inside the pineapple (literally, take the end off the fruit, put a blender to it, serve with straw), and generally had a good time.

Back in the hostel, I packed up, got a discount voucher for Grab from the hostel owner, and Grabbed a car to the Sabah museum. It wasn’t terribly impressive, but the textile exhibition was nice. The best was the Sabah history section – I read up on the history of Malaysia before, so it was interesting to see it recounted again, with artefacts from the times. I find it really interesting how positively the British are depicted in this exhibition, especially considering that one of the exhibits is an old black and white British video where the authoritative imperial voiceover announces that the Malay people are lazy and no good at work.

Which is why the Brits imported so many Chinese people to these lands, which is why Malaysia later had so many ethnic-based problems with creating the current federation, and which probably partially explains why most people dislike Chinese tourists here. History of Malaysia is really interesting, seriously, look it up.

The museum includes an outdoors reconstruction of traditional houses from old Sabah, mostly built of bamboo and rattan, all on stilts offering protection from floods and animals. Really cool, gave me some ideas on how to build platforms in rooms. If I ever build a holiday house, I’ll look this up again. Also, there were some fantastic details on how to display the skulls of enemies defeated in years of headhunting raids, and how to treat them to ensure the good luck they bring and avoid angering their spirits too much. A fine line to walk, using the heads of enemies whose spirits still linger about as lucky charms!

And then, there was the Islamic culture museum which probably had better quality exhibits than the main museum. Then again, I do love beautiful book miniatures! My favourite exhibit was a copy of Al-Quran written on hundreds of bamboo pieces sewn together.

Finally, there was no denying it any further: it is time to go. I caught a ride to the airport and started getting ready for the long night. I leave Kota Kinabalu just after dusk at 7:20pm, and after nineteen hours arrive to London at 6:35am.

The night was long and dark, fortunately wasn’t full of terrors. An annoying kid behind me who kept shaking my seat was the worst thing that happened. I tried to sleep a bit, but inevitably was wide awake by 3am UK time – jetlag will come. Finished another book though! Three in total this holiday, not too bad.

And so the story ends. I needed this, the warmth, the varied landscapes, the travelling on my own, the adventures… Made me feel more confident again, I think. After all, my last tropical travel in India was somewhat mixed, with all the illness and various troubles – is nice to have this overwritten with better experiences. I know I will want to be back in the jungle, and sooner rather than later.