Saba Hotel Sandakan

Well at last ...<br><br>Well so the past 2 days i have spent with Leigh from West Byfleet and Craig from Addlestone!! Its funny who you meet on buses over here hahahaha<br><br>we got in to Sandakan quite late on Tuesday it was dark .. very dark as all the power in the town seemed to be out ..... we managed to find a hotel that had room for us and i have my own room and it is FAB!!! A hot shower oh heaven!!! The power going out ...

... they like nothing more than to get closy under your clothes before sucking your blood! We looked interesting in our outfits which were cobbled together to ensure that the minimum amount of skin was on show. The walk was actually much easier than we though it was going to be as we had built up some expedition in our minds. We saw lots of evidence of the pigmy elephants in the area - footprints and elephant dung but sadly no elephants in person. In the ...

... really nice and cheaper than the hostel we stayed in in KK.<br><br>27 August:<br>The bus station was only a two minute walk from the hotel, so we headed down early and caught the nine o' clock bus to Sepilok Orangutan Rehabilitation Centre. The bus was great just 4 Ringgits each way (less than a euro).There are two feedings a day at the centre and we planned to stay for both. We arrived just before the morning feed, bought our tickets and headed along the platform ...

... nice people. So, we had great company for our entertaining last night.<br><br>The next river trip was a bit of a non event as it was cut short at less than half distance due to a lack of petrol!<br><br>Then back at camp there was a power cut &#8211; so we ate out dinner by candle light (who knows what it was, but it tasted OK!)<br><br>Just as the night hike was about to leave the lights came back on &#8211; big cheer!<br><br>Last night in out rat infested hut, we were woken ...

... to join a tour but when i got there i again bumped into the guys from the mountain. The whole point of the tour was to stay in the jungle and spot lots of wildlife and suff. I was really unlucky with the weather again so the first schelduled boat trip had to be cut short and a night walk was cancelled. We all had an early start the next day at half 5 for a cruise down the river in hope of seeing some animals- we saw a few monkeys and a lot of birds ...

... to bag a sale actually prevented us from ending up in some random east coast fishing village. We got our return tickets from him for 35 MYR each. Be aware that when you arrive at the island the boat didn&#8217;t take us to the jetty instead they fleeced us with a taxi boat who pulled alongside us offshore demanding 2 MYR each person to get ashore, I know its not much but you cant help but feel slightly conned and at the mercy of others which I hate!<br> Our arrival at the ...

<br> Poring Hot springs and Sandakan &#8230;<br> I can quite literally sum up the two places in one very short sentence&#8230;.. Both are **** holes don&#8217;t bother with them! If you need me to elaborate then I will try to.<br> Poring Hot springs &#8230;.<br> You pay a 15 MYR conservation fee to get in and when you walk around the corner all you see is concrete bath tubs and a pool that locals ...

... A couple came to the feeding platform and Ona, a 5 month pregnant young lady with a penchant for handbags came right down and wandered around amongst us - no doubt eyeing up the Louis Vuitton in the hope of lurking bananas. They've got such expressive faces and eyes &amp; you can tell exactly what they're thinking. They kept quoting that their DNA is 97% the same as ours, which is pretty impressive until you realise that we're 82% the ...

... folks, as we realized she was getting closer. We didn't know exactly what to do as she made her way out of the forest to check us out. After all, during the introductory video we had just seen, they had specifically said we shouldn't touch the orangs, for fear of spreading disease - both to them and us. Thus, I struggled internally between really wanting to hug one and with the fear of being responsible for wiping out the entire center's orang population ("Yes, we used to have a ...