Bario Airport

Bario Airport is about as far from a food court as you can get — and that's precisely what makes eating here such a memorable experience. The terminal is little more than a small wooden building serving the remote Kelabit Highlands, so don't arrive expecting a café menu or a grab-and-go counter. What you will find, if you're lucky, is a local family or community volunteer who may have brought along homemade provisions to share, especially during the rice harvest season.

The real dining happens in Bario village itself, just a short walk from the airstrip. Before your flight, make time for a proper meal at one of the handful of guesthouses and homestays nearby, such as Junglebaa or De Plateau Lodge, where hosts serve up some of the most honest highland cooking in all of Sarawak. Signature dishes include nasi Bario — the famously fragrant, slightly nutty heirloom rice unique to this plateau — paired with grilled wild boar, river fish, fern shoots, and preserved meats slow-cooked with local herbs.

Bario's culinary identity is inseparable from its landscape. The heirloom Bario rice, cultivated at high altitude in cool, clean air, carries a depth of flavour you simply won't find anywhere else in Malaysia, and it's often brought along by travellers as a prized souvenir in their carry-on bags. If you have an early morning flight, ask your guesthouse host the evening before to pack you a simple breakfast — a thermos of local black coffee and sticky rice wrapped in banana leaf is the perfect send-off from this extraordinary highland world.