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Published: September 29th 2013
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Monday 23rd
Up early and managed to catch the 8.30 bus to Ranau along the road from Mount Kinabalu towards Sandakan. We find an hotel and leave our things and try and get a shared mini bus up to the sulphur hot springs at Poring. There's no one to share with and we don't want to wait until enough people turn up to fill the bus, so we hire the whole bus for our selves for 30 ringgits. (£6).
Poring is a small place and really only important because of the hot springs built by the Japanese during the war. We take a walk around and see the Botanical Gardens, not very impressive. It would help if they actually finished it ! We then have another canopy walk 25 m above ground with good views over the countryside.
After a quick lunch we go in search of a flowering Rafflesia, the largest flower in the world. They only flower after years of growing and are rare. We get the chance to see two for a charge of£12 each! We walk further down the road and get offered to see one for £4 and I negotiate it down to
£2 each. We have a look for all of 2 mins ! Hardly worth paying £12 for.
Finally we have a dip in the sulphur baths, they're really hot ! and then go for a swim in the next pool which is ice cold !
For dinner we go for a KFC ! we just can't take any more rice. Oh for a potato.
Tuesday 24th
Up and in search of something for breakfast, all we manged to find is some banana cake. We go over to the bus stop in order to catch the coach across Sabah to Sandakan. We can't buy a ticket as the bus companies take turns to run the buses on alternate days and there's no ticket office in town. The bus turns up and is full, we have to wait another hour and hope there's room for us on the next one.
We are lucky next time round and get the bus. The journey is to take about 5 hours. It's very scenic with views of heavily wooded large hills for as far as you can see. Borneo as I expected it to be. The ride however is the
worst I've ever had. Up and down very steep hills and round sharp bends on a bumpy road. It's worse than a roller coaster ! If you fall asleep, you'll end up in the aisle. There's not much chance of a nap though as my seats stuck in the bolt upright position.
Eventually we reach Sandakan and take a final taxi ride to our hostel for the next 5 nights.
We take a brief walk around town in order to get some info for the places we intend to visit. The town looks as if its best days are behind it. There's plenty of places to eat later but none look too inviting.
Decided on noodles tonight, just for a change. Christine keeps to the fish and chips.
I've noticed in the last week or so that my shorts are getting bigger and I have to keep tightening my belt. If I don't leave Malaysia soon I think I'll disappear into them !
Wednesday 25th
We got chatting late last night to an English couple, Allys and Dave returning from Australia after 5 years and they have offered to give us a lift in
their car to visit the Proboscis Monkey sanctuary on the outskirts of town. They can only be seen in Borneo.
We arrive early and go to the restaurant for a drink and have to wake up the staff first. Service isn't a strong point here ! They can only find two cans of coke and one sprite. Good job we're not a coach party.
It's a great trip and we see lots of monkeys feeding at two stations and at the second station we also see silver leaf monkeys and hornbills really close up.
The silver leaf monkeys come up onto the viewing platforms and can be stroked. Not by me ! We've got some great close up shots.
It's been a very hot and humid day and we can't wait to jump into the shower, separately this time.
In the evening Dave tells us about all the spiders in Australia, the Hunter Spiders as big as dinner plates and the white tail ones that can put you in hospital from a bite. Suddenly camping doesn't sound so attractive !
Thursday 26th
Allys and Dave offer to take us along with them to
see Memorial Park which has been set up by the Australians on the site of the Sandakan POW camp to remember the Death Marches to Ranau. It's a tasteful and peaceful place to remember the terrible things done by the Japanese.
Rested up for most of the afternoon to get out of the heat.
Noodles again tonight but not quite what I was expecting. Waiter said the noodles would be "a little wet" but they came in a bowl of cabbage soup! Won't be ordering those again !
Friday 27th
This morning we catch the public bus to Sepilok to see the Orang-utan sanctuary. On the bus we get talking to a young couple, Ben and Hannah and they say they come from near Windsor. It turns out that his parents are our old next door neighbours and Ben is the "little" boy who used to live next door to us !
The sanctuary is highly efficient at running the show and we don't get long watching the monkeys. There are only 4 or 5 Orang-utans that come to the feeding station. Many of them are show offs in front of the crowd doing acrobatics
and we get some good pictures.Later many Macaques turn up and finish off the left overs.
Afterwards we sit and wait for the bus back at 12 and it arrives at 12.45 much to our relief. The bus becomes over brimming with people coming out of Friday prayers from all the mosque.
The rest of the day is spent resting up out of the heat again.
Saturday 28th
This morning we walk up the "famous" 100 steps out of town, we don't know what there famous for, to Agnes Keith's house. She was an american authoress who was married to an American who was conservator of Borneo's forests in the 1930's and got caught up in the war. They had their house reconstructed after the war and is now a museum to them. It's been well done. The building has been restored to a good standard and the museum has about the right amount of information to keep you interested.
Afterwards we walk the short distance to The English Tea House and have tea and scones with cream and jam. Our first cup of tea for 6 weeks, it's wonderful and we have 4 cups
each !
We walk back into town and call in on the Sandakan Museum. It's an odd sort of place with posters and photographs from two American photographers in the 1920's and 1930's. They carried out the first safaris of Borneo and turned them into documentaries. There were also old photos of pre war buildings, old politicians and old office machinery. An odd place !
In the afternoon we snuck into the 4* Sheraton hotel and used their roof top infinity pool. It was good to get out of the heat and cool down with a swim, even if we did have to keep an eye out for security !
This evening I get the first chance in 6 weeks to see some live football. Spurs V Chelsea.
Christine packs as we leave tomorrow for KK. A grueling 7 hour coach ride.
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Jane Rawlings
non-member comment
another grandchild
Hi you two it sounds as if you are having an interesting and hot time so far, I love reading your blogs, some comments are quite humourous! Our big news is that Mel had her baby girl on Saturday morning and 3.07pm (date 28th Sept) after quite a prolonged labour. They are both well although Mel is knackered. The baby is called Ella Rose and she weighs 7lb, she looks like a little doll but of course very beautiful. Life with us is carrying on as usual, Jeff has put in for a redundancy package and even if he does'nt get it is still going to retire so he will be leaving in about March next year, he will then get a part time job. I will carry on working but I only do two days anyway and I enjoy my job so its not too bad. Anyway, carry on travelling and stay safe love Jane and Jeff xx