Kampung Ketiau

Experimental pano stitching using only 16 pictures using Panasonic Fx520. I chose it over Nikon DSLR D40 because there is less gap.

For detailed comparisons with D40 you can refer to my other blog at 360x180pano.blogspot.com

Updates on Kota Kinabalu developments in 360x180 degree Pano

I've improved my generation of 360x180 degree Panoramic pictures.
During the last Christmas day, 25th of Dec, 2008, I took panos at 3
sites in Kota Kinabalu. Earlier, I took pictures at the new Kota
Kinabalu airport. The last few days, I start processing them. With a
new PC, Athlon 64 X2, 5200, with 4Gbyte of RAM, processing is much
faster. This month, I have uploaded to sabahheaven blogspot, more than
10 panoramic pictures.

There is a new esplanade in front of Hyatt Hotel but fishing is not
allowed and boats cannot berth there. Just next to it is the KK Market
Jetty, an old but modern pontoon based jetty which makes it convenient
for passengers to get inside boats. It is mainly used for people
travelling to Gaya Island. Tourists are welcome but passengers are
present in large numbers. Too large that they had to wait for their
boats to land while waiting for their turn. Those waiting, had to
anchor about 50 meters from the jetty in order to avioid congesting.

Large fishing boats are tied to the concrete embankments next to the
esplanade. Instead of wasting money building the esplanade out of
wood, they should allow fishing and boating instead. It is a waste of
our seafront. They should build more pontoons for boats and sun
shelters for fishermen and picnickers. Meanwhile, the former chicken
market is left empty and dilapidated due to no maintenance.

Because I have so many pictures presented in large sizes of 1920
horizontal resolutions, each taking up to 200Kbytes of data, I post my
pictures in the form of posts. Unfortunately blogspot wiill archive
and hide these posts when I have posted, i.e. uploaded, more than 10
pictures.

Centrepoint KK Reblended

The original centrepoint KK panoramic picture was stiched using autostich. They are stiched from VGA resolution pictures, more than 100 of them. Despite these large number, the bottom is still not covered.

This time, control points were generated using a stand-alone Autopano Sift for windows. Surprisingly only 2 pictures were not connected.

Then in the preview, many pictures were deselected in order to reduce human interferences. Centrepoint KK is still the prime shopping mall in Kota Kinabalu where you can find virtually any consumer item so there will always be people around.

A few pictures were cropped in order to minimise human presence. I prefer some non-oerlap compared to too much overlap because it reduces overall sharpness. These gaps can be spot healed easily.

Marriage Ceremony

Reblended using smartblend. Earlier it didn't look as sharp. It had nothing to do with the 30% JPEG compression.

In order to show the pictures more clearly, I had opted to upload 1920 resolution pictures while increasing the compression setting of the JPEG to 30%. At 100%, there is no compression. 0% means that it is at the maximum compression setting.

I can't recall what I did earlier on but I believe I used normal enblend 3.1 and Gimp 2.2 to do the image scaling.

KKIA Arrival Hall: Inside

Warisan Square 2

In front of Anjung Samudera

Sutere Harbour Marina Clubhouse at Sunset

KKIA Arrival Hall 2008

Just commissioned KKIA arrial hall.

Jetty at KK Market

Heavily crowded jetty. So many boats and passengers are waiting to alight on these pontoons.

Hyatt Seafront

A new sea front esplanade in front of Hyatt Regency Hotel. Fishing and boat berthing is not allowed despite so many boats and fishing vessels waiting to dock to the sea front.

KK Plaza Rooftop

View from the 5th floor car park of KK Plaza Shopping Mall right in front of KK Wet Market.

Sutera Harbour Marina

Warisan Square

Warisan Square. The most prominent downtown area of Kota Kinabalu, and the latest(2008) shopping mall.

Sutera Harbour Marina Swimming Pool

The fastest panoramic pictures that I had taken and stitched using Hugin and SmartBlend. It probabaly took less than an hour total. With smartblend I don't need to spend so much time cropping.

EPF COMPLEX

The only functioning water fountain at Kota Kinabalu.

Gracepoint 2

Gracepoint Food court at Sabah's Oil dispute Tragedy

This is a medium cost food court at Sembulan. It is located at the Memorial of the death of Sabahan ministers who refused to sign the oil agreement with Malaysia.

Villagers heard an explosion in the air of the Norman Islander STOL(short take off and landing) aircraft just before the plane fall like a stone. All passengers, most of which are cabinet members of Sabah's State Assembly died.

Market Jetty

This is a jetty that is now located behind the wet market. Anyone can use these jetty. It used to be located at Jesselton Point so it tends to be old but still useable.

If you have your own boat, you can pick up passengers here conveniently. You don't need to join expensive Marinas in order to enjoy a pontoon jetty that has a constant height above the sea level.

It is also very near to the city centre with ample parking spaces at the market or at KK Plaza shopping complex covered car park.

You can hire a small boat(without shade) for RM50 to visit the nearby Gaya Island villages. To go around Gaya Island, they will charge RM100 where you can stop at the excellent Police Beach which is still free for the public.

To go to the Sabah Park Islands, you can hire a bigger long boat with a canvas top for RM150 but there are more choices and more luxurious at Jesselton Point. The pontoon jetty at Jessselton Point is new and larger.

If you want the ultimate in luxury, you can embark from Sutera Harbour Marina.

Kota Kinabalu is now well equipped to allow tourists and residents to enjoy the beauty of its water front safely and conveniently. I notice that these boats are equipped with life jackets. Let us hope that it will be extended to all the Port Towns of Sandakan, Sipitang, Tawau, Semporna, Lahad Datu and Kunak.

Anjung Senja is No More

Anjung Senja was a Hawker Food Centre at the water front of Kota Kinabalu. It had been dismantled a few months ago but I still have a few panoramic pictures of such a beautiful place that are being processed.

I shall start deleting the pictures in this blog. Instead I shall insert pictures in posts. If you want a bigger picture, just click on the picture in the post. Panoramic pictures will be in the 1920x960 resolution.

Filipina Market

Exposed using Fx520 Ai. Blended using smart blend. Although it is not as good as enfuse in blending exposures, it can eliminate ghosting and does not result in lost resolution in overlapping regions.

I don't need to do cropping except to remove annoying moving cars.

KK Market Panoramic Picture

Merged using smart blend.
Stitched using nona in Hugin.
Points generated using autopano-sift for windows.
Control points inserted using Hugin which later integrate with panotools.

Exposures are manual using Panasonic Fx520, 26mm focal length equivalent. It is better to use AI exposure. In Fx520, AI means that it also adjusts for picture vibration but I notice that it prefers the largest aperture(i.e. the lowest aperture setting of 2.8).

If each picture were to be optimised for its exposure, smart blend has the capability to blend the exposure, giving the impression of high dynamic range, similar to enfuse.

Updated Sabah Panoramic Pictures and Free Software

http://groups.google.com.my/group/hugin-ptx/browse_thread/thread/4a1dde63e0e1621a?hl=en#

Details are in the hugin discussion group above.

http://panorama.000webhost.info/

The pictures can be viewed with a panoramic viewer instead of just a
flat screen as in sabahheaven.blogspot.com

blogspot.com is not designed for many pictures because it displays all
of them in one page. As I add more pictures, it will slow down the
page view.

00webhost allows me to upload up to 200Mbyte of data and have complete
control on how to view these pictures.

If I've learned how to protect my high resolution pictures, I should
display some of them.

The originals are in 8192x4096 resolutions, scaled down to 1920 for
internet viewings.

Using a 6 Megpixel, you can get as high as 14000 pixel resolution. It
will take too long to stich them. My PC is now 2Gbyte with 2.8Ghz
Hypherthreading Pentium 4. My processing speed has improved immensely
to less than 1 hour per picture.

Karambunai Panorama

http://www.nexusresort.com/new/index.html

Karambunai is one of the most beautiful places on earth. It is a small
peninsula inside a lagoon. This makes the water in the lagoon so calm
and yet full of life.

The beach facing the South China sea is exposed so the waves tend to
be big.

Situated at about 15km from the nearest Mega Mall of the recently
opened 1borneo, it is very remote which made it attractive for people
who want privacy and complete tranquillity.

The cheaper rooms at the Ocean Wing, are not easy to book during
weekends, so we checked in on Friday immediately after my children had
gone home from school.

I had just completed the stitching of panoramic pictures of the beach
at the hotel and at the lagoon and uploaded to
sabahheaven.blogspot.com.

I've updated my panoramic pictures by using exposure adjustment
provided by enfuse for the whole picture and patched some missing
portions. I had even reconstructed half of a volleyball court.

Sandakan's Beauty "Hanging in the balance"

These are the views of an Australian journalist and I agree with him
completely but there are a few points to note.

Buli sim-sim may look like Brunei Water village, but it is completely
under developed.

Despite paying for rates, there is no sewage and waste disposal
services. Only in 1994 after an election campaign were dustbins
introduced at the road side for some considerate people to bring their
non-biodegradable rubbish almost 100m away.

In Brunei, their water villages are equipped like any normal housing,
i.e. complete with water, street lights, dustbins, and sewarage.

In Sandakan, the bridges were built out of wood which makes them
vulnerable during fire outbreaks.

I was raised at Buli Sim-sim, where I learned to swim or rather float
at sea beside our house.

Development may appear to be rapid but they are actually
underdeveloped. They were built to last only a few months. I thought
it was due to the heavy use but after reviewing the budget given to
Sabah, it is obvious that most probably it was caused by insufficient
budget making engineers design them with available budget and to
please voters. Road surfaces that need 6 inches were budgeted for 3
inches only.

When I went back to Sandakan recently, I just don't understand the
feeling of a town that is devastated by wars. The roads that were
sealed just a few months ago, were completely destroyed. The status of
the road from Kota Kinabalu to Sandakan, didn't appear to change from
more than 20 years ago, which is worse than the roads that I travel at
Batak Plateau in Indonesia, 20 years ago.

Batak region is known as among the poorest in Indonesia but I cannot
recall any house that is worse than the houses that I find in Sabah,
especially in Sandakan. This is highlighted by the scenes of houses in
other parts of the world that are well known to be at war or full of
violences such as Somalia and Palestine. Their houses there are much
better than our rusty zinc roofed houses scattered all over Sabah.

The UN figure of 23% poverty rate in 206 for Sabah is an eye opener
for me. This was based on a poverty level of RM680 but now accorfding
to an academician, the figure should be RM820 in 2007. In 2008, the
poverty level should be even higher but there is no indicator that
Sabahans are getting higher salaries or higher profits as a result of
internal investment or expenditures. The poverty level should be even
higher in 2008, than the 23% figure.

For the reader's information, the budget for Sabah is still much less
than the percentage of Sabah's population of 13% of Malaysia, and much
less than the size of Sabah i.e. 25%. Sabahan leader's in the
government appear extremely satisfied with these situations.

http://www.smh.com.au/news/south-east-asia/hanging-in-the-balance/2008/06/19/1213770810485.html

Hanging in the balance

Sandakan's wonders are under threat. See them while you can, writes
Graham Simmons.

At first glance, it's hard to credit that Sandakan was once the
capital of British North Borneo (now Sabah). A ramshackle jumble of
rusting corrugated-iron huts overlooking the Sulu Sea, this gateway
town of about 350,000 people is now in the throes of redevelopment.
Its formal declaration as a city, scheduled for this year, is expected
to put Sandakan firmly back on the South-East Asian map.

Long before the arrival of the British, Sandakan was a trading port of
the Islamic sultanate of Sulu, based in the south of the Philippines.
Then, after more than 90 per cent of Sandakan's buildings were razed
by the Japanese in the last years of World War II, the British moved
the capital to Jesselton (now Kota Kinabalu), on the north-east coast
of Sabah. Sandakan was rebuilt - more or less - and was then left to
rot in the steamy equatorial heat for the next 50 years or so.

It is tourism that has revived Sandakan. To Australian visitors, the
main place of interest is the Sandakan Memorial Park, commemorating
the infamous Sandakan-Ranau death march of World War II.

On the 250-kilometre march, about 4000 Malays and Indonesians and more
than 2000 Australian and British prisoners-of-war died on the way -
and among the Allied troops, only six Australians lived to recount the
horrors of the experience. Near the Memorial Park, the Sepilok Orang-
Utan Rehabilitation Sanctuary is about hope. At the sanctuary,
orphaned orang-ut

ans are cared for, nurtured and taught survival skills before being
released into the wild. Perhaps as a result of this constant human
contact, they are disarmingly friendly towards visitors.

More than 300 baby and juvenile orang-utans are in residence at
Sepilok at any one time, spread out over about 4300 hectares. At
feeding times large numbers of them converge at the feeding station -
a series of raised tree-platforms connected by rope swings. At the
time of my visit, many of the creatures appeared to be mocking the
spectators - and given our voyeuristic demeanour, maybe they had
reason to do so.

In Sandakan town, public spaces are undergoing a much-needed, major
clean-up. A new fish market graces the waterfront, selling the finest
produce of the Sulu Sea - super-fresh tuna, red snapper, garoupa,
mackerel, rayfish, mangrove crabs and tiger prawns. The fish market
forms part of the new Sandakan Harbour Square, which when completed
will be home to a new central market, a town square, a mall and a
convention centre. But the most atmospheric part of Sandakan is
undoubtedly the Buli Sim-Sim Water Village. In neighbouring Brunei,
the famous water village of Bandar Seri Begawan is home to more than
10,000 people, who live in stilt-houses perched over the Brunei River.
Buli Sim-Sim is a little smaller, but is equally colourful.

Training Sabah's Sailing Athletes

Sailing has become an important sports. It was dominated by Sabah
sailors. They were systematically trained by Leonard and Christopher
Chin of the Kota Kinabalu Yacht Club, because KYC was humiliated by
sailors from Sarawak.

It was about 1995 and two of my children were part of his project.
Unfortunately we left for Sandakan at about that time. My children
that were still at kindergarten at that time, managed to learn for a
few days only.

KYC started dominating Optimist sailing in the Interport Regattas that
Sailors in Borneo competed with.

Not satisfied with the results so far, Leonard expanded the sailing
interest to Sandakan and Tawau Yacht Clubs. Three of my children went
for the training conducted by Leonard Chin himself, along with the
children of my school mates, Mabel and Karin Lim. I frequently see him
playing badminton at school or halls around Sandakan.

During the first training sessions, parents came along and helped
sailors from KYC handle boats and children. I remember clearly Mabel
Lim's enthusiasm in sailing. My daughter, being older and more
experienced, having been exposed to Optimist sailing early on, learned
quickly and helped train the other young sailors.

Unfortunately, I moved to Kota Kinabalu in 2001 again, and this time,
three of my children and some children from SYC competed at KYC and
Magellan Sutera Harbour. My family stayed at the 5 star Sutera Harbour
Resort using my transfer allowance, while watching my children
compete.

None of them won but it was a good experience for my children because
they sail in the ocean in rough sea from Tanjung Aru Beach to the
Sutera Harbour Marina. Many boats capsize. My youngest son was not
allowed to sail but managed to sail in the trials.

Leornard came up with the Novice championships for beginners in
Optimist. My daughter won one event but being almost 14 years old, I
realised that she will not be able to achieve world class standard. My
sons, were not interested partly because their performances were not
impressive.

Leonard Chin predicted that SYC will produce champion optimist sailors
because of the unpredictable and shifting winds and currents at
Sandakan Bay. He is proven correct because by 2007, SYC had produced
champions in the form of Mabel and Karin Lims, and I'm sure some other
sailors.

http://www.syc.org.my/newspaper.htm

I've video recorded the training sessions of my two youngest children
and had uploaded them to youtube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9cQstp8zMtM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0xVJz2Eiz4c

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YFJ4lPXgEO0

You should notice how calm the sea was despite an approaching storm so
sailors can train almost any time. This is unlike at Tanjung Aru
Beach, where KYC sailors train, the venue for the first training
sessions for my children. Many sessions were cancelled because waves
were too strong for optimist boats.

Sailing is a good sport and pastime. It is not demanding like
badminton. It requres lots of brain power instead of physical power.
It allows us to enjoy the beauty of Sabah which is its protected seas
that is full with life.

http://www.nst.com.my/Current_News/NST/Thursday/Sport/20080529075656/Article/index_html

THE absence of Doha Asian Games winner Rufina Tan and the presence of
a plethora of national sailors at the Malaysia Games poses a
formidable challenge to a young Sabah sailing team hoping to repeat
their three-gold haul of 2006.
Rufina opted to skip the Malaysia Games in Terengganu having
sacrificed her studies in the lead up to the 2006 Doha Asian Games,
where she won gold in the optimist, thus forcing her to play catch up
with her schoolwork.

Added to that, Sabah's three gold medals in the last Games in Kedah
all came in the optimist categories, for which their sailors are now
overaged.

Josephine Tan and Mabel Lim who finished 1-2 in the girls' optimist in
Kedah have graduated to the International 420 but face an uphill
struggle against the sister combination from Kedah of Siti
Noorbaidurah and Khairunnisa Mohd Afendy, who start as favourites.

Similarly Sabah's boys' optimist champion of 2006, Adrian Brian Chang,
has moved up to the laser radial where another of Kedah's Mohd Afendy
siblings, Khairulnizam, is the favourite.
"Our sailors who won in 2006 are all sailing in different classes this
time so it is very difficult to assess their chances," said Sabah team
manager Shoon Yun Chin yesterday in a telephone interview from Setiu,
where the sailing events will be held from Tuesday.

"The sailing fleet is also a lot stronger than the last time with the
national sailors all competing here.

"We are hopeful of giving our best and are looking at medals of any
colour."

In Rufina's absence, Perak's Nurul Elia Anuar, the Asian Games bronze
medallist in the women's laser 4.7, is the main attraction in Setiu
when she takes to the sea in the laser radial event.

Seven gold medals are on offer in sailing in the men's and women's
optimist, laser radial and International 420 and the mixed team
optimist event.

Re: Kudat Riviera: Villas in the most beautiful beach

These two additional awards were not announced on its website.

At RM70,000 per acre, no Sabah wanted to develop and own these
properties. With houses on them, the prices should go up to RM500,000,
the normal prices for bungalows in Kota Kinabalu with much smaller
sizes, 1/4 of an acre.

One problem often sited is the remoteness of this area. Actually it is
not. The road is all-weather and will be accessible throughout the
year because this place is dry and sparsely populated. Natives do not
live at the beaches. They live far away from the beaches. I don't
understand this but could be due to the fact that this place is baren,
not even good for dense coconut planting.

Distance from Kota Kinabalu, is only 200km. With highways, we can
reach this place in 1.5 hours. With a plane, in just one hour.

http://www.nst.com.my/Current_News/NST/Saturday/National/2242600/Article/index_html

NST Online » Local News
2008/05/17
More awards for yet-to-be-opened villa

The exclusive Kudat Riviera villa resort.

KOTA KINABALU: The state's first high-end tourist villa resort has won
two more prestigious international awards, even before it opens its
doors.
Kudat Riviera won the awards for the "Best Developer - Waterfront
Development (Future)" and the "Best Developer - Corporate Social
Responsibility" at the Cityscape Asian Property Award Show in
Singapore last month.

The first accolades came last year for "Best Architecture" and "Best
Development" at the CNBC/Daily Mail International Property Awards in
London.

It was also declared as the "Top of the Region - Finest Development in
the Asia Pacific Region" by Asia Pacific Tropical Homes Magazine last
year.

Kudat Riviera, comprising 30 exclusive luxury villas, is set to open
its doors at the end of the year.
It is set to bring Sabah alongside Bali and Thailand, in providing the
best to high-end tourists.

Managed by Exquisite Borneo Villa (EBV), each villa is equipped with
its own butler and staff, swimming pool and private tropical garden,
offering complete privacy to guests.

Located in the northern district of Kudat, the resort is spread over
six kilometres of the coast.

Each villa has a quarter to just over an hectare of land, and guests
can choose between the beach front, hilltop or a private cove.

State Tourism Minister Datuk Masidi Manjun said the switch to luxury
tourism was long overdue, and would help boost Sabah's image.

"We see it as being the start of a significant uplift in the awareness
of Sabah's great tourism potential."

Re: Kudat Riviera: Villas in the most beautiful beach

This is a third party report of the property awards.

Although Kudat Riviera didn't win the global award, it did get the 5
star status, one of only three in all the nations that were given the
awards, at least in the "Development Category".

http://www.property-report.com/aprarchives.php?id=901&date=141107

Kudat Riviera reaps awards
by Asia Property Report

Advertisement
Kudat Riviera, a high-end villa development in Sabah by Exquisite
Borneo Villas (EBV), won two prizes at this year's International
Property Awards, which was held in conjunction with CNBC. Kudat
Riviera took five-star awards in both the Development and Architecture
(multi-unit) and categories for Malaysia.

Now in their 13th year, the awards were presented by the BBC's former
Royal Correspondent Jennie Bond at a gala dinner in London's Grosvenor
Square. An estimated 400 property professionals representing 56
countries gathered as results were announced for 100 awards across 20
categories.
The publicity surrounding Kudat Riviera, which also features in
International Homes' 'World's Best' collection, has helped put Sabah
and Malaysian Borneo on the map for international investors looking
for an exclusive exotic home.

"The International Property Awards highlight that Kudat Riviera's
exclusive properties are among the best in the world," said Phil
Dobson, EBV's founder and Managing Director. "The Kudat Riviera blends
the tranquillity of the Caribbean, the karma and mystique of Bali and
the exotic traditions and warmth of Borneo. It offers a deluxe villa
lifestyle among unspoilt beaches with easy access to Sabah's beauty
and diversity."

Other Malaysia recipients in the awards included The Legend
International Water Homes by Kuala Lumpur Metro Group, which received
four-star prizes in both in the Development and Architecture (single
unit) categories. Damansara Legenda, by Mah Sing Group, also took a
four-star award in the Development category.

For Singapore, Tanglin Residences by CapitaLand Residential was the
winner in the Development category, while Karma Kandara in Bali, by
Karma Developments, won the Development and Property awards for
Indonesia.

Kudat Riviera: Villas in the most beautiful beach

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=kudat+riviera&btnG=Google+Search

http://www.kudatriviera.com/01intro/intro.html

This picture shows the most beautiful beach in the world where this
villa is to be located. At a cost of US299 thousands only, for sizes
of more than 1 acre, it is much cheaper than the one at Sutera
Magellan at Kota Kinabalu.

The beaches are called Kelambu Beaches in the name of the island just
in front of the beaches, that you can walk to. This is one of three
that I found. One is at Sri Lanka, based on the article at Reader's
Digest about a survival from the super tsunami that struck Sri Lanka
and another at Langkawi Island.

The Kelambu beach is the longest and most beautiful among them so far
because it is not crowded. It is also close to the Tip of Borneo that
I call Horn of Borneo, Tanduk Borneo, one of three places where two
oceans meet.

Despite winning International Awards:

1) http://www.propertyawards.net/int/2007development.html
2)http://www.kudatriviera.com/05media/zip/Tropical%20Homes.zip

Site 2) talks about Phil Dobson's visions for his EBV(Exquisite Borneo
Ventures),

this place is relatively unknown among locals. None of my
acquaintances ever appreciate this beach. Almost all didn't know where
it is located. The one that did visit it, view it just as a normal
beach.

I appreciate Phil Dobson's success in acquiring this properly despite
him being a foreigner. Locals will just fill up the beaches in order
to get as much land as possible, just what they are still tryng to do
with Likas and Tanjung Aru beaches, right at the Kota Kinabalu.

Kelambu beach survived because the price of land there is so cheap
that that filling the beaches will not get as much value for land as
the major cities should get.

Orang Utan Teach Fishing

http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/nature/picture-post-gone-fishing--orangutans-in-borneo-817183.html

Daling-daling of Sandakan uploaded to Youtube

<object width="425" height="350"> <param name="movie" value="http://
www.youtube.com/v/BkyjOSECa6Y"> </param> <embed src="http://
www.youtube.com/v/BkyjOSECa6Y" type="application/x-shockwave-flash"
width="425" height="350"> </embed> </object>

This is just a fun video of my relatives dancing daling-daling to a
Bajau music.

I had seen much better performances in marriage ceremonies than the
videos that I can get hold of. Most of these commercial videos are
from Semporna so they are Bajau based especially Ubian.

The Sabah's ministry of culture had produced an audio CD called
Gemilang Sari which compiles the music accompanying these dances.
Daling-daling is mentioned there accompanied by a vocal song. The
original song is written in pure Suluk but this one has Malay words.
The English words, such as "Darling-darling" and "my girl- friend"
must have been there originally but not the Malay words. The word
Sandakan had been removed so I cannot verify the original Daling-
daling song.

I interviewed my aunty who was a dancer in the 1940s. She learned the
dance from Tausug from the Philippines. She call the dance mengilai or
mengilok, which just means to dance. They usually dance to the sound
of the bronze kulintangan. The style is different compared to the
current ones. There is too much hip and breast movements. But based on
her demonstration, she also must have moved her hips when she executed
her dance moves, although more gently.

The current version of the dances are named lolai, doldang and
pakiring, based on the names of the songs. More will be invented but
all appear to follow the same original daling-daling movements, that I
first saw in the 1970s, performed by men to a Suluk daling-daling
song.

Now the Semporna bajau claimed that daling-daling originates from
Semporna, and sung in the bajau dialect. It may be true in the 1990s
when the Semporna bajaus had popularised this dance. One theory is
that the Suluks in Sandakan, had disallowed their women from dancing
because of the numerous jealousy fights. The bajaus, tend to be less
religous so they developed this dance.

Unfortunately the bajaus also claimed that Igal-igal is the true name
for daling-daling, but the dance which they showed is very different
from daling-daling, because their feet are virtually static so the hip
movements are not prominent.

Igal-igal is similar to other native dances in emphasising hand
movements only. That is why daling-daling is unique. It must have been
adapted from the Indian dances which are shown on films here.

Igal-igal lost to Brazilian Samba: why not Daling-daling?

I don't understand why DBKK chose Igal-igal, modified to look like
Daling-daling with similar story lines and costumes, to show to an
international dance show at UMS.

It is the first time that I see Samba in real-life. It is impressive.
The women dancers gyrate both hips and breasts, vigoruously. The Salsa
is very complicated and gymnastically superb but it is a dance oi only
two people, unlike the Samba and other native dancers. The Africal
dancers are athletic which is similar to the Break dance routines of
the black people in USA, and now Shuffle.

The only disappointment is in the not showing of Daling-daling. It is
a match to the Samba but more gentle and has a good story. I've just
got the CD of this song for the Daling-daling dance, sung by a
Sandakan
suluk singer, Asidah Utoh. I was just told by my uncle about this and
he pointed out that there is the word Sandakan in that song.

He told me that officially Daling-daling is supposed to be from
Sempurna and the song tells about the story of someone visiting
Sandakan. I dispute this because there is hardly any Suluk in
Sempurna. Only Simunuls and other Bajau tribes. Most probably the
story is about a group of people from the Sulu islands visiting
Sandakan but according to my uncle, Daling-daling, in its present
state is developed in Sandakan.

I notice that Daling-daling is a song, copyrighted by a Filipino band
but I haven't heard the original sound-track of this song, in order
to compare with the song sung by Asidah Utoh.

The original music for the Igal-igal has no vocal song. Only the noise
of a Kulintangan. It is described by the Gemilang Sari CD that it is
based on an Eagle, but based on my observations of these dances, only
the hands move intricately. Nothing much moves. It is similar to our
local dances, but the hand movements emulating the Daling-daling which
in turn, is similar to the Belly-dancing of Morocco(I saw at a
Discovery Channel). The Egyptian Belly-dancing is mostly the movements
of the hips.

Now I theorise that Daling-daling is developed from the Belly-dancing
of Morocco(?),or some other Arabic nation, but modified for South East
Asian cultures making it similar to Thai and Indonesian dancing, with
long finger nails, tall and golden head-gears.

I really missed the video of a daling-daling performance. I'd like to
capture it on video and share it at the internet.

othmanskn sends you a photo of: "Island Vista"

Hello,

This is the photo of the unique Kelambu Beach, one of the fines in the world.

You can see this photo from Google Earth by enabling the Geographical Web view at the coordinates 6.987323N 116.724951E

or from the server where the photo is kept at:
http://www.panoramio.com/photo/5572675

Regards,

Photos of the World at http://www.panoramio.com/

Information about Borneo: Washington Post

You can get it by searching for " sabah malaysia" in google news.

Travelling to Borneo from USA.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/01/04/AR2008010401748.html

My comment on this article. It mentioned that land travel is
difficult. It is not. It is more interesting and cheaper as well. You
can take air conditioned buses to all the large towns in Sabah. I no
longer travel by air for years.

Another alternative is to take the sea ferries especially in Sarawak.
This is one way of viewing the islands of Borneo. It is not that much
different from the rest of the world. It is only warmer and probably
less populated despite being near large towns.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/story/2008/01/04/ST2008010402667.html
My comment. The dangers of travelling in Malaysia is Dengue fever
which cannot be prevented by taking anti-malarial pills. So the best
protection is still anti-mosquito lotion.