Sandakan

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Didn't really expect to be doing another blog entry quite so quickly but we find ourselves staying in a fantastic little hotel in Sandakan which as well as having China's answer to Basil Fawlty for an owner also has the best internet connection we've ever found.

Just to re-cap, we'd been staying for a week in Shangri-La Rasa Ria resort, Kota Kinabalu. Probably one of the most slickest run hotels we've ever stayed at, we were met at the entrance by a small army of perma-smile stunningly attractive staff. At the crash of a gong we were played into the hotel by some traditional musicians before being sat in the lounge and an ice-cold drink being instantly placed infront of us. Although it was a lovely resort, it was by local standards staggeringly expensive with food and drink priced probably just below UK prices. A bottle of water for example was Rm 7.50 (just over a pound) in the hotel shop compared to about Rm 1 in local supermarkets. A can of beer that in town was about Rm 5, the hotel sold for Rm 18.

The only easy way out of the hotel was to take their shuttle bus into Kota Kinabalu (enthusiastically waved off and waved back by the staff - still smiling!) this cost Rm 30 each so not far off a tenner for the two of us. To save money we'd buy food in town and bring it back rather than pay their inflated prices. Their buffet dinner was nice, but at Rm 100 each (about 5 times the local daily wage) not really worth the money, although we did treat ourselves a couple of times mainly for the unlimited desserts!

The one big draw for us was the orang-utan sanctuary on site. We thought that there would be trails we could walk and expected to spend a fair bit of our time there but in fact it could only be entered on an organised visit which at Rm 60 each to see the feeding time also wasn't cheap, but in the end was an amazing experience. There were six orang-utans, just a few feet from us. One youngster roly-polyed down the hill landing just about four feet from Claire. There is another better known orang-utan santuary at Sepilok near here in Sandakan, but from what people have told us the orang-utans are much further away and there are crowds of tourists so we don't think we'll bother visiting. Seeing the orang-utans at Rasa Ria was definitly a highlight of our time in Malaysia.

So after a week of luxury it was time to leave and move downtown and downbudget to a backpacker hostel in Kota Kinabalu. The only way out was the shuttle bus again, buying a return ticket (they won't let you buy a single) and getting waved and smiled away. Not being regular visitors we didn't qualify to get sung and played out by a guitar and about twenty staff unlike a couple we saw leaving the previous day. We heard several guests say it was the friendliest resort they'd ever stayed at. It certainly was friendly but we found it a bit unsettling, like all the staff had been prescribed prozac and had their teeth polished with duraglit.

Kota Kinabalu is the capital of Sabah. Occupied by the Japanese in the second world war, it was bombed almost to destruction by the Allies, so nearly all the buildings are post-war concrete structures giving an initial impression of a fairly grim town. In fact, we came to really like the town. The people are genuinly, there's several good bars and coffee shops around and there's air-conditioned malls for when it gets too hot. One pedestrianised street has been fitted out with a stage and there seems to be live music every night. There are passable Irish and English pubs although the Australian bar is apparently run by a Brit with nothing identifiably Australian about it. The locals are so laid back that one of them was so relaxed in our company that he felt comfortable enough to come and sit at our table outside a coffee shop, loudly glue sniff from a blue plastic bag and then finish our drinks for us. That was nice. Another fella I got talking to at the observation point above the town had the air of an amiable pissed Glaswegian, talking complete bollocks about Jesus and Abraham Lincoln before walking off to stop some traffic, and was last seen hanging upside down from a tree with his shoes in his hands. Maybe its us.

One of the main attractions near KK is Tunku Abdul Rahman Park, a collection of five islands just about twenty minutes away by speedboat. We made three trips over there to snorkel in the almost crystal clear water and to walk the trails through the rainforest braving the mosquitos and four-foot long monitor lizards. The first one scared the absolute shit out of me when I suddenly stumbled upon it, didn't know if it was dangerous or not, but they seem fairly placid. I took a trip over to Mount Kinabalu which at about 4100 metres is about four times the height of Snowdon and is South East Asia's highest mountain. Climb it? Couldn't even see it. Didn't stop raining all day, so I spent a while getting soaked walking some of the short trails and using up a bottle of insect repellent on my socks against the leeches and then went back to KK.

Found out there is a budget airline, AirAsia, that's fantastically cheap for getting round South East Asia. They even fly to Brisbane for just about 90 pounds (including tax). So rather than endure a six hour bus journey to Sabah's second largest city, we flew. About ten pounds each. Bargain. We were supposed to take off at 1200, we actually left a little early and by 1214 were in a taxi on the way to the town centre. We're staying in the middle of town in Mayfair Hotel. Rm 50 a night. Every rooms got a TV and DVD and there is a massive selection of free DVDs to borrow downstairs. The air-con should come with a warning about hypothermia and the bedding is all replaced every day. They even folded my dirty socks up for me. Thats gotta be worth Rm 50 alone.

Like Kota Kinabalu, Sandakan was pretty much wiped out by us in the war, so it is another collection of very, and I mean very, grim concrete buildings. But again, like KK the people are friendly and it seems like a nice place. There is a ferry from here to the Philippines so there is a big Filipino presence in the town.

We took a taxi out with a couple of Austrian girls, Claudia and Michaela, to Labuk Bay Probiscis Monkey Sanctuary about 35km away. When we were in India, we saw a documentary about these monkeys that can only be found on Borneo. We were shown this film again at the santuary, it turns out it was filmed there, and it tells the story of a group of monkeys at Labuk Bay. Sadly, the two main stars of the film both died fighting about four years ago.

These really have got to be some of the most comical looking animals in the world. The males have long drooping noses and large bloated bellies from the large amount of leaves they eat. Their stomach is multi-chambered and they can regurgitate their food to re-chew, like a cow chewing the cud. Because they eat relatively few calories and nutrients, they spend most of their time sleeping, seemingly mainly waking up to eat and to shag, with the male having a harem of around twenty females. In fact, the males seem to be in a permanent state of arousal, one enthusiastically servicing his woman in front of us while several others watched apparently waiting their turn. One of the youngsters jumped on his mum's back while she was, er busy, our guide explained that it was the only time the juvenile could get to be near his father!

The probiscis monkeys were a little further away than the orang-utans had been at Rasa Ria, but not too far and there was a lot more of them. There was also about ten silver leaf monkeys (also known as David Beckham monkeys apparently because of their hairstyles!). The sanctuary is owned by a palm oil plantation owner who became interested in the monkeys whilst destroying nearly all of their rainforest, he decided to keep a small area as a sanctuary.

We've just today been to see Sandakan Memorial Park. Between 1942 and 1945 the Japanese imprisoned about 2700 Australian and British soldiers about 12 km from here. They mainly came from Singapore when it was invaded by Japan. Thinking they were being moved to better conditions than the squalid and brutal Changi camp on Singapore, the POWs found they were actually being moved to build an airfield here and were again kept in atrocious conditions. In 1945 the Japanese decided to force march the prisoners 260 km west to Ranau, the so called "Death March". During the three marches, 500 prisoners died. Most others died at Sandakan and Ranau camps. Of the 2700 prisoners, only six survived, all Australian. Part of the camp site has been turned over to a memorial park, the rest to modern housing.

Tomorrow we probably move on again, this time south to Semporna on the way to Sipidan and Mabul Islands.

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