A Town Where The Actress Dtk Maria Manado Used To Perform

Kinarut is a small town in the Papar District. Kinarut is busy on every Saturday when there is a Tamu. It is at this place that you can get river or fresh water fishes like 'Pelian', but they are not cheap selling at RM35/kg. Kinarut started as a Train Station Town and a new Train Station had been completed, just waiting for the new but overdue railway tracks to be completed.

The old wooden shop-houses are still intact and it was in one of these shop-houses that the actress Datuk Maria Man ado used to stay to perform at the cinema which had now been replaced by a Sabah Electricity Building.

They Still Smoke 'Kirai' In Sabah

Kirai is the local cigarette popularly smoked by the Bajau and the Dusun community too. It is said to have been introduced by the Chinese when they came to BORNEO. The tobacco is wrapped inside the leaves of a kind of palm tree called nipah. This palm tree grows well along the river banks on a muddy soil.The history of the kirai is as old as the communities themselves and the fact that it still survives until today is a testimony that it has become part and parcel of the local communities and the kirai leaves and tobacco are sold at the weekly tamu or markets.It could be more popular now that the cost of the cigarettes have increased over the years.The kirai leaves are called bungkosan by the local Bajau community.