KK to SANDAKAN

KK to Sandakan

We got up at 4.00am this morning, well Mum did, I got up at 4.20am. We were at the airport by 5.25am and took off at 6.55am. We flew from KK in the East to Sandakan in the West, right over where the POWs were forced to march, and right over where we were yesterday, and just next to Mount Kinabalu. It was great seeing it from a different perspective. 

As we descended into Sandakan (30 mins after take off), I could see SOOOO many palm oil plantations. Then I could see the meandering rivers, one we are going on by boat for 3 hours to get to our hotel tonight, actually it’s in the wetlands and rainforest jungle. 

We saw the Orangutans but the post about that will come later, you will understand why when you read it. 

Because we didn’t need lunch and Mum really wanted to see some of the old Colonial city, we left the group and wandered. Up and up stairs to a hill which is where the British colonial expats lived in the early 1900s. We saw Agnes Keith’s house. She was born in 1901 in America, went to university, was a reporter, and then moved with her husband to North Borneo in 1934. She hated not working in Sandakan so she wrote books about North Borneo which were famous. Mum had read one of them but bought another one about Agnes’s experience when all the British and expats were imprisioned by the Japanese (and the book became a movie), because Agnes spent WW2 in a prison in Kuching (Sarawak). 

We then had milkshakes at another colonial house which is now a tea garden. It’s got a croquet court. 

We then met the group of five, and went to the harbour to catch a speed boat to the eco-lodge where we will spend 2 night. Obviously there is a lot of fishing in Sandakan!