First Visit to Places Around Kota Kinabalu Part 3

On 7 June morning, after a rather unique Laksa breakfast, we headed to the Mari Mari Cultural Village which is situated at a forested area on the outskirts of Kota Kinabalu. We were the first group to reach the village. While waiting outside the gate, I spotted this orange butterfly appeared to be Mycalesis anapita.

From far I saw this Nawab butterfly (polyura athamas) feeding on the grass. When I went lower to take the shot, the surge of a terrible smell told me that it was actually hooked on some animal droppings on the ground.

This Fluffy Tit (Zeltus amasa) was busy puddling on the road outside the cultural village. It looks very much the same as our local species.
Our excursion guide finally led us through the gate after a short briefing on the dos and don'ts in the village. The guide who spoke good English went through detailed introductions of the different cultural traditions of the various tribes - the Bajau, Murut,Lundanyeh, Rungus and the Dusun. An excellent blog write-up can be found here.

While we were listening to the guide explaining how Dusun women cook their food inside bamboo tubes, this male Raja Brook Birdwing (Trogonoptera brookiana ) seemed to have an interest in the food as well, fluttering around and testing the ground for puddling.

The Murut tribe is the third largest ethnic group in Sabah as shown on the signboard outside its hut. In the hut, the kids in our group really had lots of fun doing the "canvas jump". Outside the hut I spotted a few butterflies.

The Banded Angle was feeding voraciously on bird droppings. Occasionally, it would rest on the leaf and returned to feed again.
And this Neptis species was looking for a sweet spot to feed but it didn't stay still for us to take a good shot.
As we were the first group to finish the guided tour, I had time to "roam" around the area outside the concert hall. Here I spotted quite a number of butterflies, such as Clipper but I could only managed to a shot of the Eggfly (Hypolimnas bolina) After their performances, guests were invited to do simple dance on stage.

We had a simple buffet lunch at the cultural centre before we headed back to town for an free-and-easy afternoon. Here is another Neptis species hat I shot outside the dinning area.

My first trip to Kota Kinabalu was a memorable one as not only I had many opportunities to take many pictures of insects, I got to see many fantastic places around KK. Thanks Ai Ling from Oh' Farm for organising this trip.