Sandakan is situated on the northeastern coast of Borneo and once had the world's greatest concentration of millionaires supposedly (riches based on bird's nests, fish and palm oil), although you certainly wouldn't think it walking around the place - a small Asian city with some virtually empty, ugly, concrete tower blocks and the odd upmarket hotel. The town is a tourist gateway to surrounding natural treasures.
Thursday 3 March
My AirAsia flight from Kota Kinabalu to Sandakan only left 45 minutes late, so pretty good really, and to make amends, the pilot must have flown his plane faster as the flight only took 30 minutes instead of 45. The basic price was only RM9 (£1.80!), although with the card surcharge and bumping my luggage allowance up to 20kg made it RM45, still only £9! I caught a taxi from the airport into town and checked into my hotel, the Nak Hotel. They said they had a mix-up with the rooms and my single room wouldn't be available (not sure why since I had booked it over 3 months ago) but I would be upgraded to a twin room free of charge. Pretty good I thought, but not so pleased when I got to the room and found there were four air conditioner extract fans clattering away outside the room. Still, at least I'd be able to make use of my earplugs during the night.
I thought I'd have enough time to visit the Tourist Information Centre in the afternoon to check out public transport options for some of the places I wanted to visit. However, I hadn't catered for the general lack of street signs and was scuppered by finding the Centre now shut at 4pm rather than the 4.30pm stated in my Lonely Planet. I then spent a sweaty half hour trudging round town in the hot and humid afternoon trying a few tour agencies to see if I could join an organised tour, all to no avail - I'm not sure how these agencies stay in business as they never seem to have anyone booked on any tours. I did gleam some information on visiting the places I wanted to see though.
I had an evening meal (bacon, beef and mushroom pizza) and drinks (2 Tigers) in the hotel restaurant, which set me back RM49.
Friday 4 March
One of the places I had wanted to visit in Sandakan was the Labuk Bay Proboscis Monkey Sanctuary. Proboscis monkeys are only found in Borneo. They are named for their long, bulbous noses, also have large pot-bellies, and the males are constantly sexually aroused. With the arrival of the Europeans to Borneo, the locals named the monkeys "Dutch monkeys" due to their fat bellies. The Sanctuary was set up by an eco-friendly palm oil plantation owner as a reserve for the protection of the wild monkeys (either that or he thought he'd keep a bit of land for the monkeys to make some tourist dollars). There were two feeding platforms, each with two feedings a day, to ensure that family groups were not fed at the same time and place. There were also other animals and birds at the Sanctuary, such as Silver Leaf Monkeys, macaques and hornbills.
I'd phoned the Sanctuary up the previous day and confirmed they ran a shuttle bus from Sandakan to the Sanctuary, so I walked across to the Sandakan Hotel where the shuttle bus would depart at 9.30am. I was told I didn't need to book for the shuttle bus, just turn up, and I was worried in case they'd be full but I needn't have since I was the only person on it. The bus stopped at the Sepilok Orangutan Centre to pick up any more passengers (none again) before arriving at Labuk Bay at ~11am. We stopped at the entrance gate where I paid the entrance fee (RM60), camera fee (RM10) and transport fee (RM15 each way, thought it was going to be RM50 each way but they seemed to be having a special promotion on according to their leaflet).
We started off at Viewing Platform B for the 11.30am feeding. A few calls from the staff and a bucket of food soon enticed a large group of Proboscis Monkeys to the feeding platform along with a few Long-tailed Macaques hoping to steal some food. There must have been up to 50 Proboscis Monkeys there, including the alpha male and mothers with their babies. It was great watching their antics for the hour. A troupe of Silver Leaf Monkeys also arrived towards the end of the feeding and weren't shy about jumping onto our viewing platform and being fed by hand. There was also a resident Oriental Pied Hornbill jumping about. I was then driven to onsite Nipah Lodge for lunch, watched an interesting video on proboscis monkeys which appeared to have been shot in the reserve, and went to the 2.30pm feeding on Platform A. This was actually worth visiting in its own right and not just a repeat of the other platform. The keepers would put food on the viewing platform and the monkeys were quite content to eat right next to us, oblivious of our presence.
Normally, the shuttle bus would leave the Sanctuary at 5.30pm after the final 4.30pm feeding on Platform B but because I was the only one who got on (and a couple of other girls joined halfway through) and we'd seen a feeding at each platform, we agreed we all wanted to go back to Sandakan and were driven back, arriving back in town ~4pm.
I had a meal at the hotel restaurant again, another pizza and a couple of Tiger beers, and watched a beautiful sunset over the city, spoilt somewhat by an ugly, concrete tower block which obscured half of my view.
Expenses (excluding food): RM320 (~£64) £1=RM5
Flight from KK to Sandakan with AirAsia RM44
Taxi from Sandakan Airport to hotel RM26.50
Accommodation: 2 nights Nak Hotel (single room, en-suite, a/c, RM75/night) RM150
Labuk Bay Proboscis Sanctuary RM100 (RM15 shuttle bus each way, RM60 entry, RM10 camera fee)
Links:
http://www.nakhotel.com/history.html
http://www.proboscis.cc/
Labuk Bay Proboscis Monkey Sanctuary
Saturday, March 05, 2011
Sandakan, Sabah, Malaysia
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2025-02-06