Friday 1^st March

The Sandakan Yacht Club has made our week very refreshing for all. The girls have spent every available minute in the pool while I have enjoyed watching from the side and making the most of their free Wi-Fi. A Water Monitor Lizard has shared the pool with them making its way slowly across the cool water with the propulsion of its tail. The Sea Glass boys have kept the girls entertained and sun-burnt faces have shown how long a pool can entertain them all.

Sandakan (05:50.400N 118:07.692E)is a very tidy, clean town until the tide changed bringing rubbish from somewhere into the harbour, although there is no sign on the streets. Shops packed with tailors, hardware shops, clothes and trinkets are fun to wander in. The market is loaded with fresh fruit and vegetables, spices, dried fish, meat, fresh fish and bakery goods. We have stocked up the fridge and look forward to tucking into fresh papaya, pineapples, apples and oranges again!

Going out for breakfast is a very cheap affair with us all enjoying Roti Telur, with egg and Dahl sauce to dip it in (costing 1.50 ringgit, worth 50 cents) and Lemon Tea (loaded with sugar as everything here is). We walked out paying approx. five dollars. Dinner at the Yacht Club has expanded everyone’s tastes eating squid, sweet and sour chicken and prawns cooked in the Chinese way. Malaysia is a mix of cultures so there are a variety of food styles to enjoy.

Gone is the simple village life here and the girls are very pleased they don’t live in the multi-story buildings above the shops, lined with washing and grime and crammed with people. The noise starts early here with the Mosques call to prayer, being a predominantly Muslim country, and the boat traffic shortly afterwards.

Saturday 2^nd March

Sepilok Orangutan Rehabilitation Centre was spectacular with its primary forest of enormous trees reaching for the sky, with bird nest ferns and creepers clinging and vines twirling around them. Feeding platforms have been set amongst the trees to help the Orangutans on their way to independence when they are released into the park. A mother and her baby enjoyed the fruit while a young male appeared to be performing for us on the ropes leading to the platform. Looked like morning yoga and oh for his flexibility.

A trip to the war memorial, where a POW camp was in World War Two, was saddening to see how many lives were wasted under the Japanese. Hard to imagine what is now beautiful trees with black squirrels running up them, was once a dirty camp with huts surrounded by a huge fence. Only six men survived out of 2500 brought there to build a Japanese airfield, and they were the ones who escaped. Later, we waddled out after a long lunch at the English Tea House, perched high on a hill with a lovely view over Sandakan and the harbour, very full after we finished with tea and scones, jam and cream.