BORNEO EXPERIENCE
Live among the Bajau fishermen - 2D/ 1N homestay program
JOMOBORNEO
Promoting Nature Conservation through Responsible Tourism Management
Discover a different approach of adventure travel in the West Coast of Borneo.
Live among the Bajau fishing community and be part of their unique lifestyle.
Help protect the environment while learning a whole new experience.
Local fishing boats in the calm Usukan Bay. The tranquility of the bay's beaches is
very comforting for those who have rare chance to get away from the hectic city lifestyle.
Experience the Culture and Lifestyle of The Bajau Fishermen
A unique experience awaits you in Borneo when you visit the fishing villages of Kuala Abai and Mantanani Island. We have a special tour designed to be totally different from other tourist package offered by any tour operators in Sabah. In our package, we will let you to really experience the life of a Bajau fisherman; i.e to be a part of their lives for 2 days. You will be working together with your host family and help them harvesting marine resources which are their main source of income. Your participation in the program will help to ensure that the locals would stop using destructive methods of sea harvesting thus giving time for the surrounding coral reef to recover from years of bombing in the past.
Who Are The Bajau?
Formerly notorious for piracy and used to constantly roaming the waters of Borneo and the Southern Phillippines, the Bajau was dubbed as sea gypsies for their refusal to live on land and their nomadic lifestyle. Some tribe even believed that the sea belong to the living; and the land for the dead. Even until today, small groups of the Bajaus in the East Coast of Sabah still live in houseboats and only come to land to sell their produce and get necessary supplies like tapioca, fresh water, and sugar. It is rumored that they will try to spend as little time as possible on land because they would get dizzy and uncomfortable. Only on rare occassions like death of a family member that they will stay longer on land to guard the grave for a few days for fear that the fresh corpse would be eaten by demons and evil spirits. Although that their ancestors were once feared by many in the region, the present Bajau tribes that still roam the waters between Sabah and Phillippines today are the opposite description of their forefathers. They are a bit shy when approached but a smile will never leave their face all the while. The only telltale sign of their ancestors reputation is their excellent seafaring skills and their bravery to sail in their small boat no matter how bad the weather is.
In the West Coast however, majority of the Bajau people has settled permanently on land. Only a few still live on stilt houses on water, but nobody live in houseboats any longer. Unlike the East Coast, the West Coast has only a few islands lying out near the mainland in the South China Sea whereas in the East Coast they have few hundreds small islands. So while the Bajau of the East Coast settle in small islands and practice nomadic lifestyle, the West Coast Bajau has limited options to continue the tradition, hence forcing them to settle permanently on land. But nevertheless, fishing activities are still their main source of income right until this day.
In Sabah, the Bajau people has always been associated with seafood and are traditionally the main supplier of dried marine products such as salted fish, dried prawns, cuttlefish, and anchovies. On the other hand, they also keep a bad reputation as fish bombers. Many agencies, organizations, even government bodies can't stop the destructive practice even campaigns after campaigns are launched, hefty fines introduced, and law enforcement were carried out continously. The fishermen found that bombing fish is the easiest and quickest way of getting their harvest. They don't have to go further out to sea to get fish, and they don't have to damage their net caused by dragging corals in the shallow reef, and more importantly it is not as time consuming and as exhausting as using nets. Then I came up with this idea of giving them an alternative source of income but still practice their traditional economic activity without having to use destructive methods. So I suggested to them that they would take tourists on their fishing trips. By this way, not only they make money from the fish that they caught, they will also receive money from the tourist that they took along. So there would be no problem for them even if they catch is not much, they still get some tourist money and they don't have to go and destroy the environment.
The program is designed not only to help poor fishermen families earn extra income through tourism, but it is also aimed to protect the coral reef in Usukan Bay. And this program is something that I can do to help protecting the environment in the most effective way; that is by turning the former fishbombers into reef protectors through direct participation of the community and enabling them to directly benefit from it.
