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Published: August 19th 2007
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More boats!
Going over to turtle island Our journey to Sabah was relatively smooth. Petaling Street market is quiet first thing in the morning, so we walked through ok with our backpacks to the monorail. We caught the Sky Bus from KL Sentral to the Low Cost Carrier Airline for our bargain Air Asia flight to Sandakan. Fortunately the check-in guy must have been in a good mood because our 17kg and 19kg backpacks mysteriously became 13kg and 17kg, so we escaped extra luggage charges (15kg is very stingy anyway!). We had arrived early and were first in the queue but that made no odds trying to get the exit seats, as you can't reserve a seat, it's a free for all at the boarding gate. It was a nice new plane and we got the exit seats, but they only had the same leg room as a standard seat, but it was only a short flight. Fortunately our bags were waiting for us after immigration so we got our taxi to the Sabah Hotel. Sabah Hotel was a lovely four star hotel with a great pool area. We chilled out around the pool several times over the next few days and we actually felt like we were
Sandakan Jetty
Lots of stilted villages on a real holiday!
Turtle Island Next day we were picked up for our tour to Selingan Island, famous for the turtles nesting there. The motorboat ride to the island was bumpy but fun and we jumped out the boat onto a tiny desert island. On the way to our room we saw a huge monitor lizard lurking in the undergrowth and were told there were lots around the island, some up to 2m long. We decided to go for a walk and you could literally walk around the island in a few minutes. After lunch we went snorkelling around the reef, but it was extremely shallow even though we had waited for a higher tide. It was great for getting close to the fish but inevitably we ended up with scraped hands and knees from the coral. We lay on the idyllic beach and tried to ignore the irritating flies hovering around our feet. Then we had to gather our stuff for the evening, where we would camp out in the cafeteria waiting for mummy turtles to arrive. Our guide said the low tide, wind, rain and lightening from the incoming storm did not bode well for turtle
Our room
On Turtle island nesting. So after tea we settled down to play cards with a two British honeymooners, but before we could even deal the guide ran in shouting "Turtle Time!".
We excitedly dashed down the beach with our torches, dodging the hermit crabs scuttling out of our path. We arrived to find a huge female Green Turtle had settled into a nest and was already laying her eggs. We hovered in a semi-circular inches behind her, but she continued to pop eggs out, oblivious to 20 odd tourists marvelling at her intimate moment. In total 77 eggs were collected by the ranger, which were transferred to the hatchery, where they are protected from predators. The final phase of the evening was the release of fifty tiny turtles into the sea. The ranger brought out a basket full of cute wriggling baby turtles and like a scene from Animal Planet, he tipped the basket down the beach and the babies all scurried to the shoreline aand they bobbed on little waves, carrying them out to sea. Ahhhh...
Orangutan Rehabilitation Centre After a fantastic night, we jumped aboard the boat back to Sandakan. We survived the choppy crossing and were rewarded with
chips and eggs for breakfast - Jase was well chuffed! Our next stop was Sepilok for the famous Orangutan Rehabilitation Centre, arriving there in time for the 10am feeding time. The young orangutans were already hovering around the feeding platforms in anticipation of breakfast. Four orangs swung in along the ropes to retrieve a sugar cane stick, which they munched before a main course of milk and bananas. In total eight orangutans visited the platforms which was a good sighting, as it isn't a zoo, they are wild, and the idea is that they feed them the same nosh everyday to encourage the orangutans to forage further in the forest for food, to gain independence.
Buddhist Temple On the way back, we visited a Buddhist temple built back in the 80s, high on the hill overlooking Sandakan bay. It was all red and gold, red apparently symbolising wealth, but the tranquility of the place was hilariously disturbed by a little Chinese lady burping loudly. How sacrilegous!
We got dropped back at Sabah Hotel for some more well earned R&R around the pool. We went to the English Teahouse for dinner, which served delish food and pink lemonade, and
Deserted island
Well nearly, only 40 people allowed! you could have real tea on the lawn and play croquet. Very colonial! We arrived back at the hotel to a frenzy of activity. Unfortunately the red carpet wasn't for us, they were eagerly awaiting the arrival of Abdullah the Prime Minister of Malaysia. We hovered around the carpet to join in the fun, waiting with camera at the ready, and we managed to get a pic of him, taking us to a total of two prime ministers on our travels (Botswana too).
Sandkan Memorial Park We caught a taxi to Sandakan Memorial Park, which commemorates the site where Australian and British soldiers died at the Japanese POW camp. The camp incarcerated a total 2500 Allied soldiers, who suffered a terrible ordeal at the hands of the Japanese, culminating in the infamous Death March to Ranau. Tragically only 6 men survived by escaping.
Later that afternoon we wandered around Sandakan town and sat in KFC overlooking the harbour (KFC are bloody everywhere - we reckon they must be bigger than Maccie Ds because you find them in the most remote African and Malaysian towns). The guy serving behind the counter burped in our face mid-order, burping obviously isn't
considered that rude over here! We nearly got the giggles. In the evening we visited Mile 4 which is supposed to be where all the night life is. Yeah maybe, but it was all karaoke bars and we know how much Rach loves a good sing-a-long. We had food at Subway City instead and Jase got squid in his chicken rice despite insisting he wanted a dish with no fish. They are obsessed with seafood over here - whenever you ask someone to recommend a restaurant, it's always seafood! Oh how we miss bacon! Pork was rare in parts of Africa and non-existent in Muslim Malaysia. We sat eating Haagen Daz to console ourselves at the hotel, listening to a funny karaoke/caberet singer standing on top of the jacuzzi, illuminated by fairy lights.
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Debra
non-member comment
turtle chaos
That is a lot of baby turtles in a small plastic container. the real reason why turtles are rare.