Holiday in Sabah part three (about the place)

View from my dad’s estate house. Click to enlarge

Kunak is actually located in the east-coast of Sabah. I believe the Kunak population is mostly Bugis and Bajau. There are quite a number of Kadazan dusunpeople here who owns lands through the efforts of Tun Fuad Stepehens? as I was told. They were relocated from Kota Kinabalu area for some kind of program. Thus we have this area in Kunak just before the town called ‘Kampung Kadazan’ where most of the families who runs and owned agricultural lands (mostly for palm trees) are concentrated and lived quite close to each other.

Pellets from bullets I found while eating wild boar meat!

Other races includes Chinese, ‘Orang Timur’ (Originally Irian Jaya descendants from Indonesia), the Suluks, Cocos and the Tidungs to name a few. The Cocos also have a great history. They were descendants from the Cocos (Keeling) Islands now under Australia. Agricultural is the main business in Kunak, palm oil mostly. These crude palm oil (CPO) is exported to other countries like Japan as well as for the Malaysian market. (Okay, I copied the earlier part from my posting at mount-kinabalu-borneo.com/blog entitled Journey to Kunak, Sabah – A travelogue by Kay Stanford Jr Kastum. If you want to know just a little bit more about Kunak, then check that post.

Tawau bus station. Takes you to other parts of Tawau like Jalan Air Panas or Kg Muhibbah

Anyway, while I was in Kunak, my major activity is ‘helping’ out with the church preparation for Christmas and also the New year celebrations. While helping out in the church compound, the ladies would be doing a little bit of cooking and call every single one who is present to eat. They were all really fantastic. Most of the time the guys will be doing the heavier work like slicing, hammering, preparing the meat as well as sitting down and having a little ‘drink’ to quench the thirst. (Uhum..)

The Kunak St Peter’s Church Grotto

My dads natural alarm clock. Boy does this thing wakes you up..like 4 o’clock in the morning!

I used to study in SM St patrick and SMK Kuhara Tawau. At the time, my dad was working in ‘Brumas Camp’ or Sabah Softwood Berhad. It’s a plantation company deep in the interior in the middle of the jungle! Anyway I did made a visit to Tawau. Tried to catch up with old friends but non seems to be able to see me. Most probably it’s too short of a notice etc. Tawau is pretty congested right now compared to before. The street roads are still the same size but the amount of vehicles has increased. I can see that most people can afford a car nowadays.

I was in my friend’s Avanza (yes.. Avanza) while my sis and others joined my dads 4X4 to the picnic area

As mentioned before, if you happened to be in Tawau, you got to check out the big market. A centralized market that sells perishable goods. Get your fresh supply of vegetables, fruits, meat, fish and especially dried fish / ocean-originated living things. I mean they have it all. Dried cuttlefish, sharkfins, anchovies.. man they have every single sea creatures here.

Dried seafood heaven

I also had a chance to go back to the river. One thing great about being a Sabahan is that most of us can still enjoy the fun of going to the river, eating exotic foods, being amazed by mother natures greatest gift to us-the forest, and much more. Just a few days before I left, we went to the river in the vicinity of the plantation estate where my dad worked. There we went looking for ‘siput sedut’. I’m not sure what do you call them scientifically or what’s it called in English, but I guess it’s some sort of river snail..? You just need to cut off the top of the shell using a machete or a heavy chopping knife. I don’t know what is the best recipe for cooking these stuff but as long as you have water and a good temperature, that should do it.

Having fun at the river…priceless..

In the river we did get quite a lot of those things. However it rained the day before so the water level is a little bit high making the job of finding it a little harder. You just need to use your hands to feel the sides of the river bottom or the rocks. We also got some prawns. Lot’s of them. But I think it’s a smaller species. Either that or we mistakenly got the little ones. Oh well, they taste good all the same!

My mom’s catch so far..

After the river session, we went to this place where water was coming out from the ground. Must be some kind of ‘mata air’. I also am not sure what you call them in English. The water is really cold and refreshing. The estate management made a collection pond for it. People can actually bath in it and stuff. Pretty cool. The best part was the food. We cooked those buggers we caught on the spot and it was really awesome. We also barbecued some chicken and salted fish. Top that up with fresh prawns we caught and the snail things and you got yourself a well balanced meal and super tasty! Precious. I would never trade that moment for anything else. Plus you have good friends and your family with you too.

Here’s a video of the pool thingy and yes, we put the beer there to cool it down
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These guys were so excited they did not want to leave when it was time..

It rained so heavily after that we did not have enough time to pack all the stuff. Every single one got soaked.

Get soaked in the rain 5 times a day=good for health!