I arrived in Borneo at Sandakan Airport on Monday morning, very tired and bleary eyed. I went straight to my hostel, Sandakan Backpackers and it made me realise just how good I had had it the last week! Kirsti and Josh were in Sandakan too but just about to fly out so we met up for a quick drink before they left for the airport.
I wasn’t in any fit state to be doing much so I just stayed in most of the afternoon, reading and recovering but too overtired to sleep unfortunately! Sandakan is pretty quiet at the best of times anyway, its mostly a transit town for people heading to see the orangutans or taking a river cruise. There was only one other person staying at the backpackers (it IS low season), Cara who was from England. We got chatting and ended up going out for dinner together on the harbour, which is NOT as fancy as it sounds, before heading back and getting a relatively early night.
This morning I headed out early and caught a local bus to the Sepilok Orangutan Rehabilitation Centre. The Centre rescues orphaned, injured or displaced orangutans and aims to return them back to the wild. There are 4 feeding platforms within the reserve and the public can only view one as the others are further back in the forest and the orangutans that are closer to being returned to the wild are fed there. I did note tha tas I handed over my 40Ringett entrance fee they stamped the ticket with “Sightings of orangutans not guaranteed”! So I went to the 10am feeding which was very cool, watching them swing in through the forest to the platform then gorge themselves on bananas and milk.
After a walk around the centre and along the forest walk ways I left the centre and walked about 1.5km to the Rainforest Discovery Centre which is an education facility run by the Sabah Forestry Department, primarily to create public awareness and appreciation of the importance of conserving forests. There are kilometres of paths, bridges and canopied walkways through the rainforest encompassed by the Centre and I spent a couple of hours walking through. It was surprisingly well signposted and informative. And, given that it was a roastingly hot day, there were plenty of shady spots to have a rest too.
From there I walked back to the main road to wait for a bus but after 45 minutes I gave up and walked another kilometre to the NEXT main road. I wanted to go the Sandakan War Memorial but the driver and his merry men couldn’t understand me. Then suddenly they directed me off the bus and said this was the street I needed. I was a little befuddled and proceeded to walk down what I thought was the road to the memorial, only 600m away supposedly. 4km later and dripping with sweat I finally had to concede that perhaps I didn’t know where I was and should get a taxi. I flagged one down and couldn’t believe it when I saw how far I had walked; down the wrong street-it was the next one over…
The memorial was really lovely and so well maintained. The memorial is to commemorate the 2400 Australian and British prisoners of war held by the Japanese in the Sandakan POW Camp. Between 1942 and 1944 they were used as a labour force to build a military airstrip. In 1945 the Japanese decided to move the POW’s 260kms west into the mountains. On 3 forced marches through the mountains to Ranau, 500 prisoners died, the rest all died at the Sandakan and Ranau camps. Of all those alive in Jan 1945 only 6 -all Australians- survived; and only then because they escaped. The memorial park is set up in the grounds where the original camp was maintained and a few relics from the day are still in place.
After another long walk back to the main road my feet packed it in and refused to carry me any further so In found a bus and headed back to Sandakan. The buses are pretty funny, there is a driver and then 2 of his mates. One looks out for potential passengers and calls out to them and the other collects money on the bus. The buses are decked out according to the drivers taste; my personal fav was one with Guns n Roses posters plastered over the inside whilst blaring hip hop at ear shattering levels from the speakers.
Given that I saw pretty much everything Sandakan has to offer in one day I am probably going to leave here tomorrow and head west towards Kota Kinabalu.
