A visit to the local market provides a good indication of what the local populace eat daily. Nowadays, markets are also one of the attractions that tourists love to visit! In our previous tours to Italy and South Korea, we did spend some time at their local markets to look at goods and merchandise sold and to try out some of their interesting delicacies (Read here) and (Read here).
Kudat has a wet market and a dry market. We dropped by at the dry market just before leaving for home on 26.09.2024. The dry market is rather huge and the majority of the stalls either sell vegetables or dried staff. Since Kudat is well known for their seafood, the bulk of the dried staff are dried salted fish, ikan bilis, dried shrimps, dried squids, dried scallops, dried oysters and dried sea cucumbers.
The ladies spent significant time at the stalls which sell ikan bilis, dried shrimps and dried sea cucumbers. They put their bargaining skill to good use in dealing with the stall operators. Though this is not a flea market, they managed to get the dried sea cucumbers regarded with high-vale components and bioactives at almost 30% discount! Dried seafood products sold in Kudat are indeed much cheaper than those sold in KK - some as much as 50% less!
At the peak of their bargaining, I was reminded of some of the purchases I did in my previous tour to China. One can bargain prices down to one-fifth of the original price offered (Read here)! Personally, I hate this kind of sale tactic!
At the stall selling dried sea cucumbers, I chit-chatted with a Chinese speaking customer who was also looking at these dried staff. He commented that the total value of the goods sold at this small stall could amount to at least RM50k. Though the people manning the stall are local natives and Bajau, he contended that the ultimate man behind it could be a Chinese towkay! Looking at the prices of the some of the packs tagged at RM1k and above, RM50k is indeed not an exaggeration!
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