When in Sabah, Do the Mari Mari

A young Dusun maiden preparing rice wine at Mari Mari Cultural Village

I was pressed for time in planning my itinerary, clueless on where to go when I arrive in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah. So I nicely delegated the itinerary planning to my nice friend, Jay and to my surprise, she was fast at giving me a list of places to head to, Mari Mari Cultural Village being one of the locations. I love the name Mari Mari which means Come, Come. Did my part by checking on Tripadvisor and yup, they turned up to have good reviews. 

How did I book this trip?

Since I only got to check in Tune Hotel 1Borneo at 3 pm. I conveniently booked myself a trip at their tour desk. At only RM150, it included a two-way transfer to Mari Mari Cultural Village. The pick ups are 3 times a day. Unfortunately, I had to join the last show which is held at 6 pm. The driver came punctually at 5:30 pm. 

On the way to Mari Mari, I saw some water villages. Wooden houses built on stilts above what used to be mangroves which are mostly dried up by now - making way for modern living.

Upon arrival, we were greeted by Matt (hope I got his name right) our friendly guide. The visitors were from everywhere - Phillipines, Hong Kong, Japan and me from Penang! So Matt explained that there would be 7 types of long houses of different Sabah natives that we will be visiting, namely Dusun, Bajau, Rungus, Lundayeh, Murut.

At Mari Mari Cultural Village

Matt the Friendly Guide from Mari Mari Cultural Village

In my personal opinion, the long house somewhat resemble a museum that is alive. I think I exercised all my five senses there. During the tour, there were much to offer to the sight, smell, taste, touch and hear.

Each long house has distinctive features. Some are made of bamboos and others of wood. Each house also offered different things to taste from rice wine to honey to pandan leaf drink which was said to have a calming effect to cure hangover. We even got to sample a local delicacy named kuih jala - referring to the net-like look of it. At the end of the tour, we were treated to a simple local meal buffet style. I just had to talk about food first. :P

This Dusun Long House was our first stop. The bamboo construction amazed all of us.

The interior of a Dusun long house

Of fire, rope, trampolin and hot dudes

"We are the city folks that scream at the sight of cockroaches." - Danielle Fung 

Here comes the irony on who is less exposed to the worldly matters. It was my first time watching how fire was set with bare hands (to my horror, I have lost memory on how it was done by now) and how tree barks were used to make ropes and warrior vests.

Along came another discovery, trampolin made of wood - elastic wood to be precise. Made me wonder how creative human beings could be. This trampolin sat in the middle of a long house and a gift or a ball, I can't recall was placed right on the ceiling. A very high one. And the dudes who wish to marry a girl was supposed to jump up to rip that whatever from the ceiling. Voila, marry the bride! We were told not to jump too high as we were not trained. Hoppity hop, I had much fun trampoling on the trampolin.

Lastly, I wish to make note of was the cultural dance we were treated to. The young men were dressed like warriors with big colourful feathers on their head and quite nude. Visitors were also invited to dance along. This show was quite a visual treat.

3 Things I Learned from Mari Mari Cultural Village

It's  lifelong learning for me. To put my learnings to good use, I shall point out 3 things that I learned from here. 

1. If you have to go to a jungly place, ALWAYS bring mosquito repellent. 
2. Life indeed can be very simple. Let's go back to the basic.
3. Some natives are alcoholics. I like.

Email Booking

A reply from Mari Mari which disappointed me

It's probably silly to add this at the end of the post and you must be wondering why. I have often travelled solo and there are pros and cons to everything so while I enjoyed travelling solo for the peace of mind and not having to wait for my bathroom, sometimes having no one to share cost on transportation sucks.

Here's an example why it sucks travelling alone. I wrote in an email which I obtained from the official website of Mari Mari Cultural Village to ask them how can I go about booking the trip because I travel alone. 

Below is the kind of reply that I received, I was asked to pay for 2 persons!! Furious at their replies, a friend did ask me not to go. I decided not to keep grudges over the person that replied my email. After all, the entire cultural village wasn't made up of one person. It's a collective effort. The experience touring the village was a fun one though I genuinely thought that the admin at Mari Mari could improve on their replies.

The truth was I didn't book from the website since they rendered no logical options to me. Any other tour guides in Kota Kinabalu would be happy to take over the service. So please don't tell me you don't serve solo travellers.

How to Get There?

Unless you rent a car, it seemed quite remote to me. After my tour ended, I was sent back to the hotel. It was pitch black right outside of Mari Mari Cultural Village on the road which no working lamp posts. Don't recall seeing bus stops too. So it's probably best to just get a tour package that includes a transfer back to your hotel.