I flew into Sandakan first thing in the morning. At the airport, I had the information desk book me for 1 night in the hotel recomended by the lonely planet. I took a cab in, dropped off my stuff, then went to catch the bus. The bus dropped me off 2 KM from the orangutan reserve, with 10 minutes before feeding. Luckily there was a cab waiting, so I arrived at the feeding only 3-4 minutes late. And then I collapsed. Well almost. I was really tired and not feeling well, so I laid down during about half of the feeding. In any case, it really was not that interesting. We were not very close. They had a 2nd tye of monkey which ate after the orangutan's and they were more lively. But this mostly seemed like a waste, until about 20 minutes afterr the feeding when the tour groups had all disappeared, but the monkey's were still clowning around, and walking on the trails. So that was cool. Not quite an orangutan experience but interesting anyway.
I caught a different bus back, realized that I didn't know where I was, and for a while couldn't even remember the name of my hotel. Woops. Eventually I found the hotel, and settled in for a rest, then watched a dvd (we had flat screen tvs in the rooms) and lots of dvds. As Sandakan was a pit, and there was nothing to do, and no good food to be had, I just booked my river trip for the next day and went to sleep.
But by the next day, I was really sick. I cancled my river trip, but the hotel was booked u so I had to move to a worse and more expensive one. Yuck. And desite the supposided wealth of sandakan (palm oil or something), I just could not find anything in the town, so spent most of my day in bed, after booking a flight to Kuala Lumur and another flight to Bali for the next day.
I guess I will have to do Borneo another time. Next time it will be an organized eco-vacation, as the cities were not interesting.
