Sandakan Trip-14-16 February 2011

Last week, Sandakan, east Sabah was badly affected by flood. According to local news and medical officer, there are few people died due to the incident.

Since it is my first trip to Sandakan, so I was quite blurred with the place. Before I went for the trip, I only made a search on accommodation which is nearest to all places of interest. According to my search, it is the main city.

However, I was quite shocked that almost all the budget hotels were having water disruption due to the bad flood that happened to that area, which affected their water supply.

Almost giving up hope, I found a 4 stars hotel, Swiss Inn Waterfront which provides quite a reasonable price, RM135, Deluxe room, town view inclusive of breakfast for two. And, they have no water disruption problem



They are also giving a package of room+24 hours car rental (kancil) in the price of RM200 + (10% service charge & 6% government tax). That time, I was very lucky to have auto- myvi with original price is RM160/day

As a reminder, Sandakan is totally hot..easily dehydrated and tanned.

Have to be careful with the food served at stalls around the city...I get diarrhea for whole day for a meal only
**************************************************************************
Based on the map only, we went to Agnes Keith House which is located around 5 mins by road

It is a re-conserved wooden house of a journalist named Agnes keith. She is famous for the books of "Three man Came", "White men return" and other 5 books which I can recalled. The book is available at the English Tea House and Restaurant which is adjacent to the building (around 500 metres). It costs around RM50++ per book



The entrance fee of the house is RM3 per Malaysian.Later, we went to St.Michael's and All angels church which is started to be built around 200 years ago using granite which was available around Sandakan Area. It survived the world war II.

In 24th April 2005, three stained glass panels window inscribed with the word, "Lest We forget" has been placed above the main door on the west wall of the church

It resembles the gratefulness of Australian and British toward the locals who had helped the Prisoners of war during WW2.

Anyway, I feel very irritated that the entrance fee for local is RM10/pax, even for a Malaysian. According to the person in charged, she said the money is meant for church activity. That's fine. Even when we asked for brochure about the church, she also charged us for RM10 also. Luckily there's no service and government tax. We paid for RM20 to enter the building, we just need less than 1 minute to see the internal design.


At the Tourist information center, which is at the MPS (majlis perbandaran Sandakan), Sandakan council... There's a few spots such as the Sandakan Heritage Museum, William Pryer Monument and Malaysia Fountain

The place is hardly to be found by car. At the town, there's two MPS building, one is Menara MPS, and the other one is MPS. MPS is the landmark, it has police station opposite of it.

The lady in information center is very friendly and helpful. Let her know which place are you intended to go and she will give the better map for you.

In Sandakan Heritage Museum, one can expect to see the before and after bombing town of Sandakan
**************************************************************
The next day, we went further to Labuk Bay, Sandakan Memorial Park.

It is a jungle park, there are few stations which tell the story of the Death March- 260Km. From Sandakan to Ranua.

During World War II, the Japanese moved all the prisoners of war (Australian, British and local) by asking them to walk without taking care of their charity, that in the end, around 2,400 KM died.

Sometimes, I personally think that Westerners are great enough to conquer Sabahans. I said so, as they are more advance in civilization in many ways compare to us. But, my visits to Labuan, Ranau and Sandakan make me come into senses that, there are always other who are more superior than those who think that they are superior enough.

Japanese, despite of their petite size and etc..still able to conquer those people who conquered us before.

It is better, that the local Sabahans still help them...

It shows humanity.
Anyway, there's no entrance fee for this park, nor its brochure.


Sepilok rehabilitation center.. where the infant of orang utan (man of forest) is placed to be rehabbed in term of health and surviving skill.

Entrance fee is Malaysian/non-malaysian: RM 5/RM30
Cameras and video cameras RM10

It is advisable to come by 9.30am or 2.30 pm as 30 minutes later, the orang utan and monkeys will come out for food.
****************************************************
At night, we went to Ocean King Seafood at Pasir Putih. It is opened during day and night.

For night, they opened at 6pm-11pm.



We ate at around RM30 inclusive of cheesy prawns (RM24) and Green vegetables (RM7), rice (RM1.4 per bowl) and a of teapot(1L) of chrysanthemum tea (RM2). Good thing is no Government and service tax..
**************************************************************************
Gallery


KIV

Turtle island and Gomantong cave...