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| Jesselton Point |
When planning our 4 months away from Songster we decided to go to Northern
Borneo where Bob worked for 9 months in 1973 doing a coastal survey job and
living in tents and grass huts. Bob dug
up some of his old photos from that time and we have been going on the ‘Footsteps
of Bob Nostalgia Tour’ of Sabah, Brunei and Sarawak. I am hoping Bob will write a post giving his
then and now perspective of our trip but until then I will give the highlights
of our travels
The sights flying into Kota Kinabalu
(KK) were spectacular – pristine islands, coral reefs, clear blue water. I was very excited to be landing in wild Borneo,
the land of jungles, orang-utans and head-hunters and the subject of endless
nature shows I watched as a kid. What we
found in KK was a dynamic, modern, cosmopolitan city – big hotels, endless
shopping malls with all the big name shops and streets lined with restaurants
serving cuisines from around the world.
Our first day we hired a car to drive
to Papar, a town about 50 km down the coast, where Bob had a camp in 1973. We found the street corner where Bob had
taken a photo in 1973 and except for more cars, not much had changed.
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| 1973 |
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| 2017 |
But out on the beach things were quite
different. Instead of a dirt road and
jungle there was now a sealed road, nice houses and open spaces. We had a lovely walk on the beach, which we
had all to ourselves and got our feet wet in the warm South China Sea. On the deserted beach with the bush hiding the
houses one could imagine how it might have been in 1973.
Back in KK that evening we went to the
night fish markets. What an amazing
feast for eyes and stomach! A huge
market of stalls stretched before us with every imaginable type of fish and
seafood, many I had never seen before.
Dinners would wander through the stalls and pick the items they wanted
and they would be cooked on the spot. We
just went up and down the stalls agog looking at the displays. We happened upon an Australian couple from
Queensland (one of the few ferringi (foreigners) we have come across) who were
in heaven in front a huge pile of various shellfish. We weren’t intending to have dinner as we had
had a late lunch but couldn’t resist. We
settled on sharing a lovely grilled fish – fantastic.
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| Dinners enjoying themselves |
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| I have never seen such large prawns! |
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| Fresh colourful fish |
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| Shellfish of every kind |
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| Or maybe some sea weed on the side? |
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| Fish grilling on a bamboo leaf |
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