Thursday, July 21, 2005

Kota Belud Tamu - Sabah's Most Vibrant Market

The Weekly Tamu or Sunday Market of Kota Belud, near Kota Kinabalu in Sabah, Malaysia Borneo, was originally known as Tamu Darat (Land Market). It was held on neutral ground where the indigenous Dusun meet the other indigenous groups such as Bajau, Irranun and Obian Muslims, as well as the Chinese traders, to barter or purchase goods.

The Tamu offers unrivalled opportunity for discovering some of Sabah's many different ethnic groups as well as exploring an astonishing variety of products such as herbal medicine, mountain-grown vegetables, wild orchids, chilli-laced dried fish, luscious tropical fruits, edible seaweed and much more.

On top of this, you may catch the unforgettable sights of the medicine men hawking their wares, the Irranun ladies enjoying a spur-of-the-moment performance while waiting for people to buy their musical instruments, the colourful Rungus selling their popular hand-made brooms and woven baskets brought all the way from their traditional longhouse in Kudat, or the Bajau women turning out a constant stream of deep-fried cakes.

If you are visiting during October, then you will be right in time for the grand climax of the regular Sunday Tamu. The Annual Kota Belud Tamu Besar (Grand Market) is a special event and a huge tribal gathering normally held in October each year. The Grand Tamu includes a massive market, traditional and cultural ceremonies, displays, handicrafts, dances, and the famous ornately decorated Bajau horsemen.

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2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I think you are stealing photos from other tourism sites for display in your blog. Please respect copyright!!!

e-borneo.com said...

Thank you so much 'Anonymous' for your kind comments.

To put the record straight, we have always taken Copyright with upmost respect.

After checking, we foud that the photo in question was used with permission from the InfoSabah site ( http://www.infosabah.com.my/discovery/package/sun_market.html ) years ago to accompany a previous similar article of ours.

However, we have taken the liberty to remove it from this blog given that we can't be certain whether the said image was actually copyright-ed to InfoSabah in the first place since no copyright statement was ever mentioned on their site as at today.

As such, we wish to thank you for bringing this matter up.

Please kindly note that all photos on this blog have been given direct/indirect permission and consent from the owners or through affiliation to be posted by e-borneo.com, either on our main site on our blog.

The only issue we see is that some photos may not have been given due creditability (including ours) as far as their copyright statement is concerned even if the source for the article was quoted.

This action will also remove any doubts readers such as you may have with regards to us "stealing photos from other tourism sites for display".

Our deepest thanks to you, 'Anonymous', once again for bringing up this important matter.

Hoping to serve you better and with more "credibitality" in future.

Thank you.