The Night Market

Kota Kinabalu is an absolute, sensory overload. The smells alone…hot tarmac, damp grass, car exhaust, urine, sewage, fried chicken, coffee, motorbike fumes, obligatory Maccy D’s (of course!)….

Then there are the sounds…the omnipresent hum of traffic, which can be heard even tucked away in your hostel bed, rising in a crescendo as the morning rush-hour builds…The tooting of horns…The early morning and late night drilling (no-one wants to work in the mid-day heat here)...The drone of a plane taking off nearby, the buzz of a speed boat ferrying tourists to and from the islands….The pervasive call of the taxi driver, ”You want a taxi?!”…The deceptively friendly, yet progressively aggressive plea from the massage ladies, “Miss!! You want a head massage? Only 45 ringitt!! I give you for 40!!! MISS!!”…The café waitresses that wave menus in your face, ”You want a coffee? ABC?!!”….The hiss of a bus as it passes…The mew of a cat as it curls around your chair leg looking wistfully at your plate…The incoherent call of the market-stall owner, advertising his wares…The often pleasant, often irritating chatter of fellow backpackers trickling in from the kitchen, who either have a genuine interest in listening to others, or a genuine desire to brag (the kind that don’t so much as listen, as wait for you to finish so that they can start speaking)…The crackle of the aircon, the whirring of a fan….The genuinely-cheerful hellos from passers-by (which they deliver with a wave and a smile)…

The night market is like a crazy crossroads of all of these smells, sounds, colours, tastes where everything collides, and then explodes in an absurd but exciting splurge of busyness!

Everything intensifies here. The closer you get to the fish, the louder the sounds (that crazy upward spiral where each man must shout louder than the next to make his voice heard!...times infinitum), the more slippery the floor, the more putrid the smell…fish, guts, blood, bones…death. This is no place for flipflops.

And then there are the colours….all the colours of the rainbow, and every shade in between.

The unfamiliar trials on your senses, the crunch of bone and gristle as you chew on your chicken tail that occasionally makes you want to retch, the squeak of rats under the table as you try to eat, the slimy splash of water dripping off the fish and bouncing back up your shins, and the ooze of God Knows What squelching between your toes. The smoke from the BBQs stinging your eyes and making them water. The feel of a lobster’s back under your finger, and the intense and surprisingly elaborate colours and patterns of its shell.  The familiar sweet smell of sugar, wrapped up in a new, unfamiliar delicacy. At 1 ringitt each, it’s got to be worth a try, right?!

If you want to be more adventurous, there’s fish heads and chicken legs and fowl-smelling dried fish (waste not…), and desiccated seahorses (!!!), and if you so fancy, there’s even squid on a stick.

And then there are the people. The oldies, the babies, the cheeky little boys and the shy little girls, the sincere looking parents, the lazy teenagers lounging in the background with earphones and mobile phone, the little ones sent out with a carrier bag to scrounge scraps, the hassled looking customers…. So many of them want to catch your eye, then when you do and you smile, they smile back (a shy smile and then look away quickly, embarrassed, but it’s always a smile that reaches their eyes).

This place is a kaleidoscope and I love it.