Post-trip note:
For those who don't know, there's a story to Mt. Santubong. There's even a song on it.
I'm too lazy to type, so I'll just lift it from a Googled site.
Long ago when Borneo was a young island, giants and spirits were known to humans, moving back and forth between earth and kayangan, the celestial kingdom. One day the King saw that there was fighting among the people down on earth. So he sent two princesses, Puteri Santubong and Puteri Sejinjang, to make peace between the villages. These two lovely princesses used their charms to get the people to finally stop fighting. Peace returned and the area was called Damai, meaning ‘tranquil’.
The people were so grateful that they begged the two to stay, which both graciously did. Puteri Santubong took up cloth-weaving, while Puteri Sejinjang pounded rice padi. Their beauty remained and they were known far and wide. But Puteri Santubong became more sought after by handsome suitors throughout the land due to her delightful cloths. Soon she got married and became pregnant.
Puteri Sejinjang unfortunately became jealous, claiming she was more beautiful than her sister. Santubong would not agree and a huge argument ensued between the two. In the end Sejinjang became violent and hit her pounding pestle on the head of Santubong, who fell to the earth and grew into the mountain that bears her name. But just before Santubong fell she threw her weaving loom’s beam at Sejinjang, breaking a part of her body, which scattered into the sea, creating the islands in the area (Pulau Kera, Pulau Burong and so on). Meanwhile, the rest of Sejinjang’s body also fell to the earth and became the other mountain near Mount Santubong.
The villagers had also taken sides instead of helping to make peace between the dueling princesses, who had then placed curses on each other’s supporters, turning them into the monkeys and other animals that now roam the mountains, jungles and islands.
Today, if you look at Mount Santubong from the sea, you can see the outline of a pregnant woman, and even the gully or crevice where Sejinjang hit Santubong’s head with the pestle.
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