Advertisement
Published: November 23rd 2010
Edit Blog Post
We left Selingan Turtle Island at 7am for the 1 hour boat trip back to Sandakan. Our Taxi driver (Jad), who we had used all the time we were in Sandakan was sat waiting for us. We didn't have any accommodation booked for this evening so spent the next 15 minutes driving around trying to find somewhere for the night. Whilst on the trip to Turtle Island The Mayfair Hotel (actually hostel, which looked pretty discusting from the outside) was recommened to us, unfortunateley this was fully booked. According to Ange, it looked much better on the inside! Jad told us to try the Nak Hotel (same owners as Paganakan Dii), luckily there was a room available.
We spent a couple of hours resting in our room and then decided to tackle the 'Sandakan Heritage Trail'. The Sandakan Heritage Trail is a comprehensive walk that covers the town's important and interesting sites which have contributed to her rich historical past. These include the 100-year old Masjid Jamek, the Pryer Memorial, a granite structure erected to honour the founder of Sandakan, William B. Pryer, the Tourist Information Centre, the WWII memorial and much more. Climbing the Stairs with a Hundred Steps leads
to a beautiful view of Sandakan town and bay. It also brings you to the British colonial government quarters, called Newlands, which was once occupied by the famous American writer, Agnes Newton Keith, who penned Land Below The Wind in 1939. From restored colonial buildings like the Agnes Keith's House and the English Tea House (we had a chocolate milkshake at the English Tea House, just to remind us what it is like in Engalnd!), to places of worship - St. Michael's and All Angels Church, Sam Sing Kung (Three Saints) Temple and Goddess of Mercy Temple, this one hour walk takes you back to over 100 years. This supposedly one hour walk took us at least three hours and that wasn't seeing everything. Whoever was able walk this in one hour must be super fit and used to the extreme heat, or just completely mad! After the trail we had some well deserved lunch and then went back to our hotel for an afternoon of rest!
Later in the afternoon we decided to go for a gentle stroll and get some snacks to have with a beer later in evening. We were walking along the harbour front through
a cafe/restaurant when someone grabbed Janes' arm and said 'hi'. Luckily we were now used to random strangers shaking our hands and speaking to us. Only this was not a random stranger...it was someone who lived in Oxford and who we had gone skiing with to Sweden 2 years earlier! What a small world! We had our dinner and a few beers with Fitty and Sian and arranged to meet them the following day. We were getting a 8.15am flight to KK and they would be getting the 2.15pm flight so we arranged to meet them at 4pm in KK. After dinner we wandered back to our hotel completely shocked at meeting people we knew and looking forward to meeting them the following day.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.114s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 8; qc: 41; dbt: 0.0333s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb