Borneo Day 4

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In the early 1800’s in the town of Donggongon, the British introduced a peace day where head hunters could not kill anyone. As a result a market was set up every Thursday. Today we are visiting this market.
One of the special things about these markets is that much of the produce is from the Jungle. Most people would shy away from the Sabah banana because it is very brown but it is a different type of banana and this is how it should be. The Sabah banana is the state fruit and what they have named the sate after.
There was also a lot of natural medicines. One that caught my eye was Ant nest medicine because it has all the nutrients from the food that the ants take into the fern root that is its home.
We are now entering a restaurant called Hinompuka that also teaches local culture at a school that is part of the restaurant.
We picked up a Tarap from the markets to start with. A close relation to a Durian but tasted much like a passion fruit. Apart from trying many local dishes, the one that stood out for me was hinava which was a salad with barracuda cured in lime and then tossed with local veggies. At the end we tried some local rice wine that was pretty much like sake.
I know the next thing we are off to see is not food related but we are going anyway to a head hunters house. Chilling. How am I going to look at this guy in the eye? This is the only house still left but the actual head hunter died 300 years ago. This place is now owned by one of his decendants. There are 43 heads in total.
When we got there we were seated to watch some traditional dancing before we toured the Monsopiat Cultural Village. We walked across a swinging bridge that was about 150 meters long before I was taken to eat a Sago worm. Yes I did. This is the same place that the TV show “Fear Factor” were taken to eat Sago worm. Nobody was able so I guess I would have won that show.
We saw some fire making, rice making making, flour making and then head preparing by the sacred rock before we were finally taken across the road to see the Skull house of the old head hunter.
I have been on many tours but today is probably the first day I feel that I have lived tribal. Should have worn a loin cloth in hindsight.
To keep following the blog on Borneo go to day 1234567

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