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Published: November 17th 2009
Sandakan is a busy town which is up there on the tourist map because of the nearby Sepilok Orangutan Sanctuary which is just a few km's away. It's also quite close to the Sungai Kinabatangan which is where we made our way from by minibus. Generally we have found minibus travel in this state quite expensive so for anyone who is coming here do your best to steer clear of them wherever possible as they are around 5x more than regular buses. When we got to the city we scored highly on the accommodation front with a great room in
Winho Lodge for just 50RM (£9) which was so nice we decided to stay a few more days to make the most of the great facilities!
As well as the nearby attractions, Sandakan city has a few of it's own with our favourite being the English Tea Rooms which sit up above the city overlooking the harbour. We don't really pine for home very often but visiting this place did actually make us miss England a little bit and we really enjoyed having a bit of England with us for the afternoon as enjoyed our English Tea in a very English
setting. The tea came in an actual teapot, the milk was in a little jug and we also had proper cups & saucers! Not only this but we also splashed out on the full works so got to wolf down scones with jam and cream too... the cream wasn't quite Devonshire clotted cream but it was fabulous all the same and we could have eaten another round had they not cost our entire food budget for the day! They had paid real attention to detail here and the waitresses were in lovely black & white uniforms, there was a croquet set on the manicured English lawn and even a peacock in a cage which made us think of Abington Park (for those people in Northampton!) and for a moment we were back at home.. well almost.. it wasn't raining and we'd worked up a real sweat in the 30+ degree heat to get there which gave the game away a bit!
The main reason for coming to this area for the majority of people is the Orangutan Sanctuary so we made our way there on one of the days and had one of our best experiences if watching these
great orange hairy ones...
As we came to the Sepilok Orangutan Park we instantly realised that this was a very well run place. From the grand archway entrance advertising that you've arrived, to the gardeners running around, the place looked bright and sparkly for the tourists that day and we assumed it looked this good each and every day. This was certainly a long way off from the previous two places we had been to see these marvelous creatures, not that this made it better as it's always great to see them and it would be hard to beat seeing them in the wild, but it's always nice to see the other side of things and all 3 places do great work in their own right.
We paid our entrance fees (which were a little steep at 30RM each with another 10RM charged for the camera), and entered the park via a wooden walkway that led to the viewing platform. We hadn't quite reached the platform when we spotted a ranger pointing up at the tree above us and said to us softly "orangutan". We both peered up to take a look and there sitting just metres away
Dale and the huge leaves
at the Rainforest Discovery Centrefrom us was a male orangutan who had turned up early hoping to be first to get some of the food spoils. There was not a tourist in sight at this point and we thought this was strange because of the amount of buses, taxis and minivans we'd just seen in the car park. As we carried on along the walkway it started to open up and there in front of us was mass after mass of white and pink tourists dressed in their best new hiking gear and armed with super sized telephoto lenses. For us this was an attraction in itself as we hadn't seen this amount of tourists in one place since Bali. It was incredibly hot on this day so we sat back in the shade and waited for the feeding 'show' to begin. The ranger appeared on the platform with a bucket of ripe bananas and then slowly but surely one by one, the orangutans started to swing in from the outlaying jungle along the wires and sat themselves on the platform with the ranger. After about ten minutes of a photographic frenzy everybody relaxed and started to watch these playful and comical apes go
about their business.
Once fully fed and watered they gracefully disappeared again into the jungle leaving just one young one hanging around. After about a five minute interval and as if by clockwork it was time for the the mischievous macaques to make their appearance and scavange what was left over by their bigger orangutans cousins. Watching them trying to stuff as much into their mouths as possible before the ranger came along to shoo them off was hilarious and we can only imagine they try this trick every day. Even funnier was the battle between the huge lead male and the tiny youngsters who kept flying off into the trees every time he caught them stealing the already stolen food from them!
After the feeding time was over it was time to leave the platform and on the way out we stopped in to have a look at the information centre which was excellent. It gave great easy to read information not only on the orangutans, but also the endangered asian rhinos and other animals this sanctuary helps. We found out that much of the funding for the park actually comes from the UK, and Prince Charles
himself pays a visit every now and then to hand out donations which made us feel quite proud. We thoroughly enjoyed our experience here and would highly recommend it to anyone travelling this way especially parents with young children as the layout, information and general facilities are fantastic and well worth the slightly steep entrance fee... OK its not quite like trekking through jungle to see fully wild orangutans but still if you want to keep your hiking boots clean and not worry about breaking that hugely expensive camera its a very good place to see orangutans!
After heading out of the park for our 2km walk back down to catch the bus we spotted an advertisement for a the Rainforest Discovery Centre and an arrow pointing in it's direction. We both decided this would be a good way to fill the rest of the day, so made the detour to check it out. It was about midday and the weather was as hot as a furnace and we were looking forward to getting into some shade underneath the trees. We arrived at the centre not quite knowing what to expect, it turned out that it was an extension
of Sepliok and there was a possibility of spotting some of the semi wild orangutans we had already seen earlier, rare birds and some of the huge plants and trees that Borneo is famous for. Again we paid the slightly overpriced entrance fee (10RM each) and headed for the new Plant Discovery Trail just behind the ticket office.
The Plant Discovery Trail was actually really interesting and we did indeed discover a lot as we walked around! It's really well laid out into sections such as desert plants, food plants etc and it was fantastic to see pitcher plants, pepper and vanilla trees, traditional medicinal plants and many beautiful orchids all growing without the aid of a greenhouse. Sophie also spotted a nutmeg tree, gave it a very nasty look and quickly walked away! We wandered around the park a little more mainly in the shade and then stumbled upon a huge canopy walkway with viewing towers looking out over the park. From here you were meant to be able to see some of Borneo's rare wild birds and possibly orangutans (we suspect they've probably seen one
once) but all we saw was a few sparrows and the odd
tourist but the view was nice all the same so made the 17m walk up there worthwhile.
After an hour or so the sun got to us and food time was calling so we headed out to the main road to catch the bus back to town for our usual roti and teh tarik lunch.. not very nutritious but very delicious even if you have already had the same for breakfast! After a great day at the 2 places we spent our remaining time in Sandakan relaxing in our air con room watching our cable tv and enjoying our hot shower.. the simple things make us very happy these days so we have to take these pleasures while we can!
Our remaining time in Sabah was spent in Kota Kinabulu the capital of this state. As far as cities go this is a really nice one and spending a week here we got to know it pretty well! We spent a week here because our plans of 'doing things' fell apart after we decided against trekking up Mount Kinabulu because the price is just too much for what should really be a one day trek which you aren't
allowed to do because one company has the monopoly over the accommodation you are forced to stay in and of course they don't want to lose out!
Our next planned outing which went up the spout was a trip to Paulu Tiga or Survivor Island, so called as the first series of Survivor was filmed here. This ended in disaster when we arrived at the jump off village, couldn't get a boat to the island, there was no accommodation (despite everyone in the town telling us there was) and no one really spoke any English, we even tried the police station but it was no help so we had to hitch back to KK to avoid being stranded for the night on the side of the road! This day ended on a high though as we were picked up by a lovely Malaysian couple who not only gave us the lift back to Kota Kinabalu, but also found us a fabulous posh new hotel (we had a flat screen tv!) just outside the city for 60RM (£11) a night then took us for a great dinner in a local seafood restaurant which we got for them to say thankyou
for being such nice people who really couldn't do enough for us.
During our week in the city we also managed 2 visits to Tunku Abdul Rahman Marine Park, a group of islands just 20 minutes off the shores of the city by speedboat. All the islands really are beautiful and if you didn't have the city skyline in front of you as you sat on the beach you could be forgiven for thinking you were on a paradise island in the middle of the ocean! We chose to visit Sapi and Mamutik islands, both were great days out as we got to enjoy the clean white sand and crystal clear waters which made for a nice break from the busy city. The snorkelling here is pretty good too, while there isn't that much coral there are plenty of fish that kept us amused in between grilling ourselves both sides on the beach! As well as these lovely islands we did try out the 'mainland' beach at Tanjung Aru but this wasn't such a success. The beach is ok but reminiscent of ones back in England, particularly as it was quite cloudy the day we went! The beach wasn't
the problem though, it was the sewerage pipe that came down to it and then into the water that made it such a horrible place, it was bearable for most of the day but when the wind changed direction and we got mouthfuls of the foul smell we decided to call it a day and got the bus out of there!
We had plans to return to this area after our upcoming visit to our 15th country so we saved a trip to Brunei until that time. We were really looking forward to our next destination for a number of reasons but mainly because we were getting a visit from a familiar face from back home...
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TinNiE
" Half the fun of the travel is the esthetic of lostness "
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I'm going on a trip to KK early next year ... and getting some nice tips from your blogs :)