Happy National Day Malaysia & My Borneo Travel Wishlist

In 2018, I find my curiosity for the mysterious island of Borneo in East of Malaysia) piqued. My trip to Kuching, the capital city of Sarawak in 2016, my BFF's obsessiveness to want to try butod or sago worms, plus the experience of living with a housemate coming from Sabah who kept telling us West Malaysians hommies that we are so ignorant to not differentiate between Sabah and Sarawak _which is so-o-o true and that they don't stay in treehouses _ okay, we finally get it.

Besides that, I also came across "Original Sabahan" song & festivals such as Pesta Nukenen a.k.a. Bario Food Festivals and so forth. These all made me want to visit Sabah and returned to Sarawak so badly.

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Here are a bunch of stuff in my travel wishlist which I wanna do in Sabah & Sarawak the next time I have a change to go there again (Soon, hopefully!):

#1 Hike up the majestic Mount Kinabalu

#2 Try Sabahan's food such as butod, pinasakan, hinava, tuhau, bambangan, busou, li nopod , sinalau bakas and ambuyat. (Read about them here)

#3 Attend Tadau Kaamatan a.k.a. Harvest Festival in Sabah and watch the crowning of the Harvest Festival Queen, Unduk Ngadau (Read about them here)

#4 Attend Pesta Nukenen a.k.a. The Bario Food Festival in Sarawak

#5 Hike up the peak of Mulu's National Park in Sarawak

#6 Explore the caves such as Niah Caves. By the way, I have been to both Fairy Caves and Wind Caves in Sarawak! Read about them here.

#7 Check out the bookstores for local dialects language books (Dusun, Kadazan, Bajau, etc.). Someone better publish this ASAP if there are none! We already have Penang Hokkien guide, yo!

#8 Take the North Borneo Railway trip

#9 Try tarap and latok

#10 Dive in Sabah & Sarawak beautiful waters

#11  Explore Gaya Street Sunday Market

#12 Eat Borneo's super fresh seafood. I wrote about my makan experience at TopSpot Food Court.

#13 Admire the largest flower in the world, Rafflesia. Again.

#14 Attend the Rainforest World Music Festival, Kite Festival, Borneo Cultural & Arts Festival and festivals in Sarawak

#15 Attend the Regatta Lepa also known as  the Dragon Boar Festival or Water Festival in Sabah. Of course, other major festivals there too!

#16 Revisit my favorite restaurants in Sarawak serving aboriginal food _ The Dyak and Lepau in Kuching, Sarawak.

#17 Watch traditional Sabahan dances such as Sumazau, Sumirid and Magunatip

#18 Go to Tamu Besar Festival in Sabah

#19 Explore Sipadan National Park, Sabah

#20  Eat all the good food in Siniawan Night Market, Sarawak. Missed it last time I was in Kuching.

#21 Islands hopping around TAR National Park

#22 Embrace local culture in Mari Mari Cultural Village and Monsopiad Cultural Village in Sabah.

#23 Tandem Paragliding at Kokol Hill

#24 Waterfall Trekking

#25 Just chilling at Manukan Island, Sipadan Island or Mabul Island

#26 The Filipino Market, KK Night Market in Sabah

#27 Stargazing at Kundasang

#28 Go birds watching in search for the majestic Hornbills

#29 Explore Tagal Tinopikon Park, an authentic Sabah village

#30 Visit the Sepilok Orang Utan Rehabiliation Center

#31 Head north to the Tip of Borneo, Simpang Mengayau, Sabah.

#32 Take the river cruise in seach of the Proboscis Monkey and Fireflies

#33 Marvel at how Desa Dairy Park looks so western-y

#34 Learn to cook local Sabahan delicacies

#35 Discover local wildlife in Tabin Wildlife Reserve

#36 Dip and hike around Poring Hot Spring Park

#37 Go glamping in Sabah or Sarawak

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For those first timers to Kuching, Sarawak you may wanna include:-

#38 Climb up tree barks ladders in Sarawak Cultural Village

#39 Stroll along the beaches in Sarawak such as Damai Beach or Pandan Beach

#40 Drink tuak and eat tuak ice cream, again.

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If you have been to Sabah & Sarawak or are locals, what would you recommend?

In conclusion guys, sempena Malaysia's 62nd National Day, I like to advocate for Malaysians to learn more about our countries' hidden beauty and encourage y'all to go on Cuti Cuti Malaysia  because there are just so many amazing things in our beautiful country!

On top of that, I think that if our PM, Tun Dr M can  do the dasar pandang ke timur (Malay for "Look East Policy", which means to use Japan as an example to run the country) then he can also include Sabah & Sarawak in this dasar because the people are more peace-loving and harmonious like the real 1Malaysia concept. The latter just need to stop hating people of West Malaysia, seriously. My Sabahan hommie also need to stop suka suka wrongly using the phrase "nia lah". I'm gonna digress _ to back up my dear fellow Western/Peninsular Malaysians, we don't hear that much of you guys from the East. And you don't speak some of Western/Peninsular dialects either.

I know I always say stuff like Japan this, Japan that, I love Taiwan, the Nusa Islands are beautiful yada yada yada" but deep down, I love Malaysia! There's no other place which has so many good food. Like, tell me which country you can go hang out at mamak at 2am! Personally, I'm so making conquering East Coast and Eastern Malaysia my goals. You'll probably read about that on my blog in the near future!

To end this ramblings, sharing with ya the video of "Original Sabahan"

hooked on durians!

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#Durian kampung but yum! #kingoffruits

A post shared by Vivien Tan (@voguelyvivien) on Jul 4, 2018 at 9:12am PDT

Just a month ago, my friends and I have been planning to check out the SS2Durian.Com stall. Coincidently that Tuesday, the Star newspaper reported that due to oversupply, durian prices are going down which I shared on my WhatsApp group. Less than an hour later, plans were made for the same night. While waiting for the rest of us to returned, Jaynie couldn't wait and went to check out the durians.

When we reached we were like OMG, there was so many people in the stall and queuing up! Obviously, we weren't the only one with the same grand idea. I later found out why _ the durians buffet, which initially priced at RM50 per person has gone down to just RM20 per person! That is super cheap!!

the queue omg..

While we were ushered to our seat in less than 30 minutes, because there are so many people, the staffs were so occupied trying to get durians to so many tables so many times we were left waiting.. I was suggesting to my friends that we ought to just choose our own durians and get a knife to open them.

Most of the durians are good, there are those which are dry and tasteless. After all, those are a mixture of durian kampung. While eating,we were also taking photos with BeautyCam app, my friend is obsessed with it! Here are some of the funny looking photos we took:

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03.07.2018 Unwinding at #DurianSS2 *burpppp*

A post shared by Vivien Tan (@voguelyvivien) on Jul 3, 2018 at 7:48am PDT

By the time we were done, I was already 110% stuffed but my friends had the heck to suggest to get Udon from the Family Mart nearby! While I didn't get the whole Udon for myself (shared with gal pal, Jaynie), I was so sick of eating literally! At night, while I was lying on my bed, I can feel the content of my gut turning X(

A few days later, I went and bought myself McD's D24 Durian McFlurry. Cost RM9 for a cup, I have to selfie with it hahahaha. Taste like the real thing but if I top up another RM11, I could have gone to another round of durian buffet in DurianSS2.Com. But I MUST have the ice cream!!!

     

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Two weeks later, I was back for more durians in SS2 with another bunch of friends. This time we headed to Brother Durian. Our initial choice was DurianSS2.Com but we didn't know the buffet only starts at 6:30PM. 

So off we went to check out the other stalls and decided on Brother Durian buffet which cost RM38 per person, slightly higher than what we could get in DurianSS2.Com but has better selection of durians which include 101, Red Prawns and several others. For fans of bitter-sweet durians, this place is for you. I love how the durians are so much creamier and yellowish in flesh, so good! 

My only problem is that the service was slow and the staffs were really good at pretending so to now attend to you which annoys me. Some were pretending to be busy doing I don't know what, we had to call the staffs multiple times before one bothered to assist. When I told my gal pals about this, one of them who had been to the same place told me she experienced the same. Most time, it was the one old uncle was the one who served us. At this stall, we also ordered an overpriced coconut juice for RM5 each. You can usually get sweeter and more affordable ones elsewhere.

Heading back to the car, my friend and I dropped by DurianSS2.Com to tapau some durians home. We Myself, I bought the XO variety because it's one of my favorite and they don't serve this for buffet since it is the 'branded' kind.