Sepilok Orangutan Sanctuary

This was our final day here at Sandakan so we thought we'd go to the Orangutan Sanctuary. I had read a lot about this in the Lonely Planets book plus on-line and wasn't really expecting to see that many orangutans but we managed to see 3 adult ones and a baby one. It was very cute and they were directly above us so it was really nice being that close to them.

The park rangers fed them a huge bucket of bananas and other fruit and we spent about half an hour watching them before they disappeared back in to the jungle.

Since we were here and weren't really ready to go back to Sandakan just yet, Zaheer decided we should do one of the trails they have here. I thought it would be OK because if they have trails mentioned in the brochure then there should be a structured path and all that right? Not in this case. It was pretty much off road. We let the staff know we wanted to do the short Birders Walk and they warned us that since it had rained the previous night, there may be leeches about. We thought, 'yeah we've heard this before' and thought nothing of it as we had never up to this date seen any leeches in the Bruneien or Malay Rainforest.

It was pretty muddy and our feet were submerged in the puddles and I do remember thinking at one point, 'what if these puddles are full of leeches!!??' but carried on anyway as out of sight is out of mind right?

Anyways so we're walking along a particular narrow path with ferns all around us when Yusuf decides to lift his T-shirt up and wipe his nose. Five minutes later he's like 'Mummy, I can feel something underneath my T-shirt'. I'm thinking' 'It's probably an ant that's crawled up there' because that happens a lot in the rainforest so we lift up his t-shirt to find this:

A LEECH!!!!!!!! The blood drained from my face and I think I started hyperventilating and in my head I'm thinking, 'THIS IS THE WORST THING THAT COULD HAVE POSSIBLY HAPPENED TO US!!!!!' The scene from Aliens came to mind. You know the one (I was going to insert the picture here but it was far too gross- just google Alien chest scene on images). OK maybe it wasn't as dramatic but still! I panicked beyond belief and I'm ashamed to say I ran like hell because as you looked up, the tips of every single fern in that narrow path was covered in leeches! They were hanging on the ends trying to attach themselves to us! It was disgusting!

(Yeah OK no where near as dramatic as the Alien scene....)

We tried and tried to get the damn thing off but it was going nowhere. Yusuf was bawling his eyes out, I felt like doing the same so we ran as fast as we could back to the centre. Thankfully there was a woman there who knew what to do. Apparently you have to put your nail under the leeches mouth and get it off like that as they can't attach themselves to the nail. She got it off and fed it to the fish. Yusuf was quite happy at this stage.

After our ordeal we decide to go to the restaurant and eat while we waited for the bus to arrive. As I'm sitting there eating, I feel something between my toes and thinking its a bit of mud, try and push it through. As I do, 2 black tiny balls of something fall to the floor and as I look, they start to move! My toe is bleeding like crazy because surprise surprise, I had two attached to my FOOT!!! Nearly screamed, cried, hyperventilated etc and ran out of the restaurant as fast as we could. Yusuf is traumatised at this point and screaming like crazy. The bus arrives and we jump on it thinking 'Thank God we can leave this place behind!'

The bus journey back was pretty uneventful and we get back to our hotel. Zaheer decides to wash his trainers and surprise surprise, (I should stop saying that...) gets a leech attached to his finger! He screamed (made me feel slightly better) and flung his hand around like a crazy man before pulling it off and flinging it out of the window. At this point in the day we were all on edge. I think we stayed like that for a good few hours until we realised that was the last of the leeches and not every little bit of thread, fluff, mud was a leech. It was a horrid, horrid day. Probably the worst of my life. I think I would maybe deal better next time but I'm really hoping there is no next time!

After all that trauma we decided to end the day and our time here in Sandakan by going to a nice restaurant with a view of Sandakan Town Centre.

We flew back to KK the next day and then back to Brunei the day after. We really enjoyed this holiday and were glad to have had the opportunity to do it. Another one ticked off the list!

Our next holiday is to Thailand where we will be staying in Bangkok, Chiang Mai and Phuket for two whole weeks! I am soooo excited about this holiday and will be posting lots of photos on that.

Sandakan Heritage Trail

After Turtle Island we had a couple of days to explore Sandakan. A bit of info about Sandakan (from good old wikipedia): It is the second largest city in Sabah. The area is infamous as the site of a World War Two Japanese airfield, built by the forced labour of 6,000 Javanese civilians and Allied prisoners of war. In 1945, the surviving Australian prisoners were sent on the Sandakan Death Marches; only 6 survived the war.

We had been told by people before we left that there wasn't much to do in Sandakan and although it was nowhere near as busy as KK, we felt it had a nice small town feel to it. They have tried to bring in tourists with the Turtle Island and the Orangutan Sanctuary. They also had a Heritage Trail which covered all of the main tourist attractions of Sandakan Town itself. It does take a full day so we thought we would do that on one of our days.

We started off quite early and luckily for us the starting point was right next to our hotel. The attractions included war memorials, a Chinese graveyard, the Agnes Keith House, English Tea House plus many more. You can click on the map to see what it covered.

(I really wish my surname was Funk. How cool is that?? Yep, I was totally soaking up the culture here....)

The Chinese graveyard was really interesting. I had never seen graves that were so big. They were decorated beautifully with tiles that had rainfalls and rivers painted on them. But the grave itself was huge. It did seem like a waste of space to me as 2 graves could have easily fit into one of the big ones but there must be a reason behind it all I'm sure (I really hope I haven't offended anyone!)

We went to see the Agnes Keith House next. She was an American author who wrote 3 autobiographical accounts of her time in Borneo. It was a beautiful house decorated with 40s furnishings and appliances.

This English Tea House was lovely. It had a 'proper' English feel to it and all their food was 'English'! (They had scones!! If that isn't English I don't know what is!) It was so quaint and seemed completely out of place in Sandakan. We ordered fish and chips (obviously!) and I've got to say they were just like the real thing.

(Earl Grey)

(Love the sail on the fish!)

The best part? You could play Croquet! They even had an old fashioned rule book and instructions. So we got our mallets and had a game and I won! Yes there was a bit of cheating going on and yes technically Zaheer probably did win but I'm going with me winning. It was a lot of fun.

This was our last stop, a Chinese Temple. There was an incredibly strong smell of incense as they have them burning all the time but you do get used to it. It was very colourful inside and they had lots of different gods around the room. The man working there was very friendly and told us all about the temple and what the gods symbolised. It was a really nice visit.

And that was the tour. We were tired as it was a whole day of walking.

We ended the day with a happy little boy:

and a burger from the night stall:

We had a really good day in Sandakan but that really was all of it! It was worth the visit though.

Next: Sepilok Orangutan Sanctuary and...............attack of the leeches!!!!!!! (well one leech....)

Turtle Island

This was on our list of holidays to do while we were staying here in Brunei. It was one of those once in a lifetime things that we both really wanted to do and this Christmas seemed the perfect time to do it. Turtle Island is a safe haven for the endangered green and hawksbill turtles. They come to lay their eggs at night so we had to spend a night there to see them.

We got a very early flight from KK to Sandakan and then got a taxi to the boat. It was perfect timing as the flight landed at 8 and the boat left at 9 so there was no waiting around. The boat journey was about an hour but it was pleasant enough and didnt feel that long. We signed in, went to our rooms to drop our luggage off then explored the island a bit.

The island itself isn't that big and there were few areas out of bound. The main area was the dining/reception room. There were also a few hatcheries where the eggs had been buried and labelled.

We hired some snorkelling equipment (for Zaheer and Yusuf) and then made our way to the beach. It was the best beach I had ever been on and that is a hard thing to say with all the stunning beaches you get in this part of the world. But really, this beach had white sand, crystal clear warm water, palm trees, gorgeous blue sky and it was pretty much deserted apart form the 8 people in our group. Most importantly their was no pollution. Its really sad how some beaches are so beautiful but ruined with all the pollution. This problem is mostly in Brunei though. The beaches in KK have been nice and clean.

During the day, the park rangers released some baby turtles that had hatched. They were so cute and very fast!

After dinner we waited for ages for the turtle to come. Yusuf was so tired he fell asleep but around 9:45pm we saw one of the turtles lay their eggs. As it was so dark and flashes and torch lights were strictly not allowed, the pictures were not that great for this blog. I did however get some half descent shots of the eggs and the baby turtles that were released during the night.

We loved this mini holiday and will always remember this experience as one of the highlights of our time here.