Sandakan & Kinabatangan River

Was looking for some place to go earlier, during school holidays where my daughter shall join a church camp planned last year. I had a discussion with my wife and concluded that we will be going somewhere different from typical town we have been so far.

We checked the tour packages available in the market and later decided with Sandakan, a small city located at Sabah, East Malaysia. Not long after, we bought a package of 2 to Sandakan via AirAsia, and off we flew on June 2nd 2011.

Clouds and clouds outside air plane, this photo was snapped on our return flight. The sight of open blue sky always make me relax and peaceful.
The return journey was uneventful, except the landing impact that was extremely hard made the passengers, all of us, shocked. Some passengers even screamed after the hard impact and the airplane went on some wobble on the runway.

Hmmm...Now Everybody can got Scared!





My wife has a very old friend, Allan, that resides in Sandakan for some years. We met Allan for dinner on the day we arrived in Sandakan. In our last day we were invited to this noodle restaurant for breakfast.
The Restaurant is located at Sim Sim Road, built above sea waters near to the shore, with extended concrete bridge.
This place is clean, well, if you minus the rubbish underneath the platform that is.





The specialty; dumpling with century egg stuffing. Noodle was not bad too.











The signboard of the noodle restaurant. It reads "The 9th famous century egg dumpling".













Prices of noodle and stuffing are written on this white board. Price was ok.













The walkway to the noodle restaurant.














Snapped this photo when we walk to shop that sells frozen seafood. Not too hygience I think, where the sewage treatment is the sea tide.













I brought a "dummy" camera with me in this trip, and realized its has very limited to offer when come to zooming. This photo was taken when we were on river cruising and Proboscis monkey were at sight.

I zoom the max the camera could, and I guess this photo could only good for the game they call "Count How Many Monkey in the Picture", with no answer.














Krizman and Elizabetha, wife and me, taken outside Sabah Hotel after we finished our last activity in the tour.













Not bad, was quite near to this err ... perhaps a couple, and managed to snap a clear one.

I was told by tour guide that the round tummy is due to intake of excessive ripe fruit and it is the sugar that caused it.
Proboscis monkey is known as "monyet Belanda" locally, or Dutch monkey, for the extraordinary nose they have.









My very happy and excited wife, right after we boarded the boat for our "evening river cruise".

We spent more than 2 hours on Upper Kinabatangan River, looking for Proboscis monkey, horn bill and black tail monkey. Few foreign tourists were hoping to see pygmy elephant and were disappointed. Some were looking for crocodiles and of course they too were disappointed.

Took this photo not long after we left the jetty.

There were 11 tourists on that boat that day, only 2 were Malaysian. The rest are from Australia, New Zealand, United States and Slovenia.

I was made to understand by the tour guide that very little Malaysian tourist are insterested in visiting Sandakan.

Gamantong Cave.

This cave is tall, some 100meter or more I guess. The only thing is the picture is not able to display the "huge" effect.

This cage is known for its bird nest which scheduled to harvest every 4 months or so. Sure, this swift there got neighbours; bats, plenty of it, and you will never be able to ignore their existence for the smell of their droppings is so so strong in the cave.

Thought this plant is special and snap a photo of it.

At seafood steamboat restaurant, "Ocean Steamboat Restaurant" at Bandar Ramai-Ramai, in our second evening in Sandakan.

Sandakan is well known for its seafood, fresh and reasonably priced. My wife was impressed with how fresh and sweet the prawn there and taken few more then normal irresistibly.

Other than fresh prawn, fish balls, fish fillet, fish paste, oyster (huge one!) and many more were available.

The seafood was superbly fresh. I have no idea how expensive or cheap it is because this meal was included in the tour package.

Having teat time outside Keith House with other tourists. Only 2 of us are locals. The gentleman sitting next to me is from Berlin, Germany. He noticed the logo printed on my t-shirt (my ex-employer's logo) and started chatting with me about it.

Entry point to Keith House.

I read about this place, marked as one of the tourist points in Sandakan.

From the article I found nothing spectacular about it. In our 2nd day, the tour route include this place as one of the spots so we just explore the way.

Agnes Keith is a writer that came to Borneo during British time and she stayed there in Agnes Keith House. She wrote something and 2 or 3 of her books were published. She left Borneo to United States after that.

Couple of years back some locals renovated this house and make it a tourist spot. If you ask me what exactly is there to be appreciated in this place, I will tell you I don't know, except that there is a room facilitated with rows of seats and nicely air conditioned, the seat is comfortable as I had good rest there. Mind you, you are not allowed to take photo in Agnes Keith House.

St. Michael and All Angels Church in Sandakan.

This church was said to be 133 years old.
We were lead into the church and there was a nice lady explained to us how old the church was, which furniture in there was there since the first day the church put in service.

The caretaker told us the sound of this bell can be heard in whole Sandakan, even today after the town expanded so much since its inception.

An internal view of the church.

Fellow tourist were having short rest in it. From the height of the building and thickness of the wall, I thought it should be cooler.

Snapped this at hill top, Puu Jih Shih temple. One can see almost complete Sandakan from here.

Far on the left is Sulu Sea, well you can't see it from here. I thought the view of Sandakan is really nice here.

A lonely dunnowat bird in Labuk Bay.

Foreign tourists busy taking photos on orang utan in Sepilok Rehabilitation Center.

I always thought foreign tourists are very serious in the photographing. The number of lens, spare battery, bags and tripod these nice people carry with them is unbelievable. Weight? at least 6 or 7kg I guess.

Manage to snap a reasonable photo on orang utan using my dummy camera. I guess you wouldn't like them much just by looking at this 2-dimensions photo, because I feel the same way before I see them in real.

In real, they are lovely. They swing on rope like something you will admired and envied. They will look at the tourist with a style, looks more like they are there to watch the tourist rather then the other way round. I guess we human like the "free-ness" in them.

Entrance to Sepilok Orangutan Rehabilitation Center.

You know what, they will charge you for bringing in camera into this premise. I could not understand why, but for the typical tourist mood we were in we just followed.










A view of "sea-sky one color" just outside SwissInn, the hotel we put up for 3 nights.I found the seawater, however, is dirty and man made wastes are plenty.

Sandakan Yatch Club.

Came to this quiet place after our dinner with Allan's family. For the boat lover I am, I walked around in the club and found no boats. Later then I realized almost all boats were taken out and keep at yard.

The GPS coordinates of Sandakan Yatch Club.

A view of dusk at Central Market, Sandakan. Sun gets down as early as 6 30pm here.

Had a walk inside bright, clean Central Market.

Snapped this view on our way back to jetty after our Kinabatangan River Cruise.

The sunshine on the trees made the riverside so nice. Color of the river looks green in the photo but in real it is actually a little yellowish. Well ... technology.

Krizman and Elizabetha at Central Market.

We met this very nice couple from Slovenia, and our interaction with them started right at the airport after our arrival at Sandakan. We were negotiating alone for better price for tour packages in tour company offices located in the airport. Thought that getting more tourist to make up the number for each package will pull the price down, my wife invited them to join us.

In our 4 days 3 nights in Sandakan, Krizman and Elizabetha were with us in all our tours.

Some saving tips for you if you are going Sandakan, the tour packages offerred in airport cost 2 times higher than what you can get in Sandakan town and hotels.

Sighted salted fish made from seven stars garoupa in central market of Sandakan.

I do know this fish worth RM 80/kg in Peninsular Malaysia and was really amazed how high value table fish is salted here and selling at RM 20/kg.

Photo of a live, swimming seven star garoupa.
The proper name of this fish in Square Tail Coral Trout. Square tail? errr...perhaps, I am not too agree with it though.

Will I Return to Sandakan once more? hmmm ... perhaps not.

I was expecting "wilder" Kinabatangan River before I came to this town. During the River Cruise we had, I noticed sun light of almost horizontal sunset could shine through the trees, indicating a rather thin forest is what actually left at riverside. I asked the tour guide and got it confirmed. Upon return to Kuala Lumpur I Google Earth the famous Kinabatangan River and realized how bad the nature forest in Sabah has been deforested. So the Proboscis monkey, the blacktail monkey, the hornbill and everything else we seen at riverside were there could probably because they have no forest to stay any further.

I asked Laura, our tour guide on our way back from River Cruise, that how actually do they as locals (she is a Kadazan) feel as forest after forest were cleared for logs and later palm oil trees were planted. Laura said over the years, their life style and spending power increased with the changed of economic models. Villagers that used to afford a bicycle are now driving cars, as an example. Expenses in daily life is getting more expensive but generally they are ok, she said.

I asked further, that the forest takes thousands of years to become the state it is today, would not it a too expensive process to lose the forest completely for 10 or 15 years of short term wealth. "ya, maybe you are right....." and Laura turned her face to elsewhere and the conversation stopped there.

The resources from the forest is abundant, it is like oil or minerals in a piece of land and these resources are owned by people of Sabah. Process of uncontrolled deforestation brought plenty of quick money to companies that trade the logs and very little is given to people and the State. When a Kadazan who drives a luxury car in future wishes to own a thick green fascinating forest, he or she will realize it is gone forever, and the forest could never be exchanged with any number of luxury car they would possibly owned.

I feel a little bit sad thinking about this fact.

Well, Good Bye Kinabatangan River!