Learn About Sabah’s Culture at Cultural Villages.
Aside from its beautiful city, mountain and islands, Kota Kinabalu is a perfect city to gain insight on Sabah’s heritage in the form of cultural villages. Some popular and unique cultural villages are Mari Mari Cultural Village, KDCA Cultural Village and Walai Tobilung. These villages aim to share the knowledge, history, and traditions of Bornean ethnic culture in the form of a live museum, ensuring that the traditional way of life will never be forgotten.
At Mari Mari Cultural Village, you can enjoy activities from rice-wine making to blow-pipe shooting and fire-starting, as well as sampling Sabahan delicacies and snacks while watching traditional performance.
For KDCA Cultural Village, it is highly recommended to visit during Kaamatan (Harvest) festival, an annual major festival celebrated widely by the locals in Sabah during the whole month of May.
Situated at Kampung Minansad, Walai Tobilung is one of the last place displaying and preserving the culture of Tobilung tribe. Witness the native’s way of living by visiting their traditional houses decorated with ancient paintings, crafts and tools. You may also sign up to see the Bobolian Ritual Show, one of the near extinct spiritual ceremony in Sabah.
Here are some cultural villages you can visit in Kota Kinabalu: