'Please taste this!'

How could we resist her offer for us to try the rice wine produced here, made following an age-old traditional recipe? 

Sure, it's a cultural village, but the recreations of traditional longhouses, implements - and rice wine - are as correct as if the headhunters (yes, truly!) were still in residence. Come to think of it, I'll always prefer my rice wine without the urging of a head-hunter!

Our guide, Jennifer, is thrilled to show us the first house we visit on this property. 'It's a Dusan longhouse,' she tells us. 'My mother grew up in one just like this.' Inhabited by rice farmers, these houses have bamboo floors, and are raised from the ground, accessed by a couple of narrow steps.

 

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These are 'yeast cookies' made from fermented glutinous rice and spring water. Tobacco is added to the slushy original mixture to add a bitter taste to the sweet. These are the main keys to the fermentation of the liquor that takes around a month to mature. If left longer, it will become stronger.

The rice wine was traditionally prepared by one or two unmarried girls, sumendak. They lived in the room where the wine was distilled, sleeping on a raised platform. Their work conditions were rigid. There was to be no talking, and their mood should be good. Even sneezing was not allowed!

This cultural village is about half an hour's drive from the capital of Sabah, Kota Kinabalu. Its name, Mari Mari, means 'as it was ...as it is'. Honey is collected from bee colonies on the site, and served as it would have been in the past in bamboo cups, similar to those used for rice wine. The bees collect nectar from wild orchids and the resulting honey is very liquid, and light in flavour.

It was obvious that our guide, Jennifer Ting, and Gabriel, the driver for the day from Sure GO Borneo, love their island home. 

Not everyone realises that parts of Borneo are Malaysian states. Sabah and Sarawak are the part of the country that is referred to as Eastern Malaysia. 

Sabah, which wraps around Brunei, is on the north-eastern tip of Borneo, between four and eight degrees north of the equator. It is an area in transition as jungle becomes oil palm plantations that have become (right or wrong) the economic lifeblood of Malaysia and other countries in similar latitudes.

In seafaring days, Sabah became known as 'the land below the wind' a phrase used by sailors to describe lands south of the typhoon belt. Its stillness, though, for those on land, makes the climate often oppressively hot and sultry.

Long before electricity, or even matches, people living in these communities needed to make fire. This village worker showed us how it was done by working hard to use the friction of a stick on a piece of bamboo.

Because these people lived in the jungle, the materials for their clothing had to come from the environment. This stylish rope vest has been made from painstaking rolling fibrous plants and soaking them in water to soften and flatten. String is made by rolling fibrous material on a bare thigh (ouch!) and takes quite a time to achieve a thin strong length.

At the entrance to the performance hall where we were to witness dancing, musicians and traditional feats of strength, we were welcomed by this fellow wearing a magnificent head dress.

Despite his eye-catching traditional feathers he was as keen as anyone else to check out his look on a modern camera.

To wrap up our visit, we were served a meal of local greens and plantains (bananas), rice and, of course, fish. When visiting the dense jungle it is easy to forget that many parts of Sabah are close to the sea, and seafood makes up a large proportion of the local diet.

Kota Kinabalu, has a population of around 450,000. You'll notice that it has the look of a new town and that's true. Formerly known as Jesselton it was almost totally demolished during the second World War.

Here, we're looking down on Australia Street where Australian soldiers first camped when they landed in Jesselton in 1945. It is now a quiet street of print shops, a popular backpacker hostel, and the downtown police station.

But there are two 'Kinabalus'. One is a city and the other is the mountain two hours east of the city. As south-east Asia's highest peak, at 4100 metres, it has achieved UNESCO World Heritage status.

Most visitors spread the ascent over two half days, with a few hours camped during the night about halfway. However, there is an annual race, in which to qualify, men must complete the 2600 metres return in two hours and under, while women may take up to three hours!

Kundasang, the town at the base, is at a cool 1500 metres, and is known as the cabbage capital even though the fertile soils can produce a range of cool-climate fruits and vegetables, including asparagus and strawberries, mushrooms, melons and cucumber.

Kinabalu’s name is a mystery. The most popular view derives it from the Kadazan words, Aki Nabalu, meaning ‘the revered place of the dead’. The local Kadazan people believe that spirits dwell on the mountaintop.

Malaysia is an Islamic country and each town or community has its own mosque. Many of them are breathtakingly beautiful, architecturally stunning.

Much of their aesthetic appeal is the perfect balance of domes and minarets, and the simplicity that many feature. 

Back in the city, our guide brought us to a fishing village, perched over water, and here again you can see the golden dome of the mosque above the roofs.

The houses are accessed by wooden footpaths and homes are like anywhere else, with gardens and pets.

Malaysia is officially a Muslim country, and everywhere you see women dressed immaculately in multicoloured sarongs and kebayas, their faces perfect ovals inside their smooth veils.

Because KK (as Sabah’s capital is often called) suffered heavily in WWII and was largely destroyed, much has been rebuilt. This means the streets are wider, traffic easier, and there are several large modern shopping centres, as well as restaurants and cafes, many serving the excellent local seafood.

Kota Kinabalu was one of the ports visited by the cruise ship we were travelling on, Crystal Symphony seen here, anchored in the bay.

A busy fishing port, some of the boats do double service taking visitors for tours, or transferring people to island destinations nearby. The language of Sabah is Bahasa Malay which has close similarity to the one spoken in Indonesia.

This striking sculpture keeps an eye on the fishing boats.....

....while nearby, in the public markets, there are strange items for sale. These ones (above) are wrapped in lotus leaves, and probably contain sticky rice, which in turn possibly encloses a chicken filling, or something similar. Without a good grasp of the local language, it is not always possible to understand signs, or even an answer if you ask someone. So guesswork, and caution, is often the best way to proceed in places like this.

Almost certainly these beautiful purple onions would have been grown at higher altitude, on the lower slopes of Mount Kinabalu, around Kundasang, and brought down to the market in the cool early morning. 

Tropical fruits abound here too, probably grown close to the town. Here we have, clockwise from left: langsats, mangoes, rambutans and mangosteens.

Next to the main market, there is a handcraft market and these fellows made a rather ghoulish souvenir. Imagine diving your hand inside your cane toad purse for some money!

Across the street was a selection of packets of dried seafood. These pieces of squid (maybe?) were on their way to becoming perfectly sundried.

Luckily, here, there are the international pictograms and an arrow, but just in case you are faced with only the word, tandas is Bahasa Malay for toilets. Awam means 'public'. It could also mean 'beware' as many public toilets in Malaysia can be rudimentary, without paper or pedestal.

Back at the waterfront roundabout near the markets, watch out for this beautiful sculpture.

Today's KK has many modern hotels, shady footpaths and good shopping. There are fast food chains.....

...but also cake shops such as this which make choosing a snack a delicious torment.

There are several large, modern shopping centres in KK. Most importantly they are air-conditioned - wonderful places to escape the often blistering heat outside.

Interestingly, despite the country's religion, at least at a commercial level, Christmas appears as part of the local shopping calendar.

To visit Sabah is to experience Malaysia on several different levels. There is the steamy coastal fringe of coconut palms and postcard-perfect beaches, five-star resorts, playground islands offering superb diving and snorkelling, and wandering rivers with fishing villages propped insecurely over the brown water. 

Sabah has been called 'the land below the wind' because it misses the typhoons that seasonally tear at most other parts of Asia. There is a gentleness in Sabah too that is not just climatic. Her diverse patchwork of over thirty native tribes, with between them dozens of languages, has yielded a peaceful people, eager to please, patient with visitors - making us reluctant to bid farewell.

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Text and photos: Sally Hammond

Video: Gordon Hammond