Final Thots from Tawau

Well, folks, it's my last full day here in Tawau, Sabah, before returning to the hustle and bustle of Kuching. What can I say by way of an epilogue to my short little holiday in this short little town?

Maybe I should say some more about Tawau itself, and Sabah in particular. Well, the state of Sabah is situated to the North of Sarawak and is very roughly shaped like a dog's face in profile. That's not to say anything disparaging about the place, because it is actually quite lovely and scenic.

When you fly over Sabah, particularly between Kota Kinabalu and Tawau, you immediately see the difference between Sabah and Sarawak. Sarawak is a vast field of green encrusted by smoky mountains, and shot through with seemingly endless tea-coloured rivers that curl around and around each other like a nervous system shaped like an Iban tatoo. Sabah, on the other hand, has all these things but most of the green is taken up by agricultural land, particularly acres and acres of regimented oil palm trees.

Sabah has always been far more of a plantation state than Sarawak, where agriculture is far more mixed. Perhaps as a result, Sabah is somewhat less developed than Sarawak, which probably explains some of Tawau's quirks mentioned in previous posts.

But in Kota Kinabalu - KK - the state capital, things are rather more civilised. KK is a bustling, tourist friendly city situated gorgeously close to the South China Sea. When you come in to land at the airport, you will have the blue, blue ocean on one side and the shining city, airport and lush hills on the other.

I remember humming the tune to the 1970s TV series Hawaii Five-O when I first landed at KK. It still has some of the aspects of an Oceanic paradise like Hawaii - heartbreaking beaches, hot, tropical sun, great places to eat and drink and some superb shopping areas. You can take boats to visit islands in the sun and go snorkeling and wind-surfing and parascending and all those things I wish I could do but don't because I'm a coward!

I could say a lot about KK - perhaps I'll save it for a later post...

Now, Tawau, well that's a different story. Surrounded on three sides by mountains and palm oil plantations and on another side by the sea, Tawau is basically a seaside town which has grown up, become fairly prosperous, but cannot get any bigger because the roads are too narrow.

On the sea front there is a fishing port where the daily catches coming in fresh every day make Tawau one of the best places to eat seafood in the whole of Malaysia. It's worth going there just for the seafood alone. Ignore the overcrowded roads and marketplaces, the heat, the dust and all the negative things people say about Tawau. Just focus on the fish. It'll blow your mind, and leave your wallet fairly intact too!

In terms of shopping - there's not much really for the tourists apart from the Philippine Market, situated next to a mosque and a stone's throw from the Marco Polo Hotel. This market is the place to get some of Sabah's famous cultured pearls and crystal ware, though I would advise you take a local guide who can haggle for you.

Another tourist favourite to be found at the Philippine Market is sea-shell products - bead curtains, table decorations etc all covered in sea-shells from the Philippines. And of course Indonesian wooden craft goods (which are truly stunning) as well as gold, Islamic craft items and plenty of local textiles and clothing.

Tawau is a meeting place for many different cultures and is often referred to as the immigrant capital of Malaysia. It is true that immigrants from many other places have made their home in Tawau - Buginese, Bajaus from the Philippines, Cocos Islanders, Timorese, Indonesians, as well as the more native-born Chinese and Malays. Not all of these people are here legally, and the government regularly deports large numbers through the port (Indonesia and the Philippines are just across the Sulu Sea from Tawau). But despite these crackdowns, Tawau remains a racially diverse cultural mongrel of a place, situated as it is at the lower jaw of the dog-shape that defines Sabah.

Tawau is also the place where my wife's family have their home, and I am grateful to them for the opportunity to visit this place. Most mat sallehs usually come to Tawau only for the diving and snorkelling, and the pearls. Well, this mat salleh already has a lovely pearl in the form of his Sabahan wife! So, he has come to Tawau to see his dear wife's family, and have a much-needed rest from the madness of an academic's life in the tropics.