Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia

Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia
The large Island of Borneo contains three countries: Indonesia, Brunei and Malaysia. Kota Kinabalu(KK) resides in Malaysia on the NW coast of Borneo in the state of Sabah. The city KK is named after Mt. Kinabalu and has a population of about 500,000. The relatively modern capital city is lively with an ethnically diverse population and continues to grow with immigrants of Chinese and Filipinos.
Upon our arrival, we traveled by small boat to two small islands, one for snorkeling and lunch, the other for a two hour nature hike through a tropical rain forest. Not much wildlife to be seen but we did see lizards, hanging fruit bats, butterflies and a poisonous viper snake, bright neon green.
The rain forest was very humid (95% humidity), dense with vegetation (imagine indoor house plants on steroids), and our guide told us how certain plants were used by the native population. Rattan was abundant and is a creeping plant along the forest floor as well as curling around other trees. It has a spiky exterior similar to long slender thorns. The needle-like thorns are tied to fish nets and also used as darts blown at prey through hollow pipes. The smooth interior wood of rattan is what westerners are familiar with in furniture making.
Borneo has a past history of native head hunters. Even today, some fishing villages are still built on stilts. Local guides say the reason is two fold…one reason was to make it difficult for raiding headhunters to capture people in the night (homeowners lift the entry ladders into the house) and the second reason to allow flooding waters to flow underneath the home. Today the city of Kota Kinabalu has both a mix of modern western style stucco buildings and the stilted wood shacks clustered tightly together in coastal neighborhoods. It would seem for some of the population, the old ways are hard to abandon.
Next stop, Hong Kong!