Sabah, Borneo 4-14 September 2024

Perth to KL  4-5 September

We felt like we were participants in the television reality show “The Great Race”, where contestants always seem to be running madly around in circles with their heavy backpacks on, trying to solve cryptic clues and receiving lots of knock-backs.

Our contest began as we drove to Perth Airport Long Term Parking through continual rain. These days, we do relatively little night driving, there being little need, but the conditions made the traffic on Tonkin Highway challenging at times. We made the dash for the shuttle bus stop, gained the sanctuary of the shelter and saw the read-outs of flight times. “Delayed” by two and a half hours. Our Malaysian Airways flight was scheduled for 1:25, but now listed for 4:15am. We were comfortably early at 10:45 but we now faced a long wait of either staying awake or somehow sleeping in an airport seat. There was also the worry about meeting our connecting flight to Sandakan in Sabah on time.

Already a tad irritable, the blood pressure rose when faced with a $13 a glass charge for a red wine and then copped the cheek of a “eftpos only” sign accompanied by a 1.6% surcharge on eftpos. I later found that the practice of charging a surcharge when no cash option is offered is illegal, but then the girl behind the bar is not the owner of the business, so what can one do?

The flight at least took off on time according to the new time and they had the good sense to delay the serving of a meal and darken down the plane so everyone could get some sleep. Christine slept quite well, I managed an hour or so between movies and the time passed tolerably well in the cramped economy class conditions. Breakfast was served with the rising of the sun but, it being Malaysian Airlines, chicken rice for breaky is a bit hard to take.

We had been told to head straight to the transfer counter at KL. We weren’t the only ones missing transfers, with another couple looking for a London flight and another now heading to Singapore to try to get a Hanoi connect. We eventually found help and were told they were holding the gate for us at B9. We were in building C so we had to find our way down to get on a bus to take us to B Block. All this time, we had still not entered Malaysia, a point that worried me. We were rushing from place to place, getting on buses, asking for lots of help. The system seems to be that you only ever give someone 60% of the answer, enough to make them think they know what you mean but leaving 40% unanswered. That’s how it was. We went from one place to another, finally coming to a point where going through immigration was inevitable. “That flight has gone,” we were told. I wasn’t surprised. We entered the country, and found yet another help desk.

The Malaysian Airlines people were very sorry and helpful. Within minutes, we were handed vouchers for more meals than we could eat, accommodation at a 4 star golf resort and transfer vouchers, along with boarding passes for the Sandakan flight the next day. Armed we these, and what we though were clear instructions for locating our luggage, we headed off again. The luggage proved a bigger puzzle, until we eventually found another very helpful girl who told us to go to carousel G, where our luggage was. After 20 minutes at Carousel G there was no sign of our two blue bags, even though our Tile Tracking App told us they were right close by. Finally, we walked right around the huge carousel to see them sitting off to the side, waiting for us.

We followed the instructions to find the transfer to our hotel, getting it 60% right before having to seek new instructions and then waiting an hour after missing a coach by mere seconds. By the time we arrived at the hotel, we were wrecked, happy to indulge ourselves in the luxurious surroundings and expansive buffet lunch.

KL to Sandakan, Sabah – 6 September

We rose early, had an over-indulgent breakfast then were taken by private car to KL Airport. The formalities went without a hitch, boarding was on time and things were looking up.

At Sandakan, I was surprised to find we had to pass through immigration once more, despite it being a domestic flight, but the authorities had their reasons. This too went smoothly and we found a driver waiting for us on the other side of customs. The tour company had arranged for us to have a private tour to make up for some of what we had missed. Our guide was wonderful, an older man who used to be a guide may years before but now did free-lance driving. He still had the knowledge to make the afternoon really enjoyable.

We visited the Sepilok Orangutan Rehabilitation Centre. This facility is dedicated to caring for sick, injured or orphaned orangutans and allowing them to return to the wild. Some animals choose not to leave, and continue adult life in the forests around the centre, benefitting from the food and medical availability. The success rate of a wild return is 66%, and since opening in 1964, the centre has catered for 760 orangutans. The first thing that struck me was the incredible height of the timber in the rainforest, with huge ironwood, ficus and teak trees abounding. The understory was almost impenetrable but we had the benefit of an elevated boardwalk.

We watched one female orangutan at a feeding platform doing her thing with the assortment of fruits and vegetables before heading to another area, that acts as a nursery area for the young ones or nursing mothers. This was a highlight, watching the juveniles play, and the obvious loving bonds between two females, one which had a young one and the other that seemed to want a bit of a cuddle. We could have sat for hours and just watched the family interactions.

Walking back along the boardwalk, we encountered a female orangutan with baby walking towards us. On instruction from staff, we just kept to one side of the boardwalk and the pair passed by quite happily.

From the orangutan sanctuary, we made our way to the Sandakan Australian War Memorial Gardens. The gardens are set on the site of the POW camp, and although little remains, there were a few bits and pieces scattered around, each documented for its significance. It was from here that 2,434 POWs were sent off on the infamous “death marches”. Three marches were organized late in the war to carry supplies to embattled Japanese troops in Ranau. Only six survived, and only because they escaped. The rest were so malnourished that they could not complete the marches, or died shortly after reaching the camp in Ranau.

I found the site particularly emotional, because my father had been stationed here after the liberation. As a Japanese interpreter, he had a part to play in the interrogations of many that were later convicted of war atrocities. He was never one to talk much about it but I was always interested in the story. I can recall seeing a photo of him on the beach at Sandakan but its whereabouts is now a mystery.

We checked into the Hotel Elopura (the ancient name for Sandakan). This proved to be a 2 star hotel trying to be a 4 star but not making the grade. Still, the shower was hot, the location excellent with street markets one side and waterfront eats the other. The food on the street is incredibly cheap. The challenge is to find a place that has acceptable food and cold beer. We are in the heartland of muslim Malaysia, so alcohol is not readily available. We found a seafood restaurant that sold beer, so we skipped the food and had a relaxing cold Anchor Beer. The menu was tempting, a whole mud crab in chilli sauce only costing 35Rt or $A10.50. Where in Australia could you get that? In the end, we had our beer and moved down the boardwalk to Bistro 88, where we had a huge bowl of fried squid, followed by a plate of pepper sauce chicken wings, with a few more Tiger Beers for 57Rt, less than $A20.

Borneo Natural Sukau Bilit Lodge – Sept 7,8

It was another early rise (getting sick of them) for breakfast overlooking Sandakan Harbour before getting on the tour bus for the trip to the rainforest lodge. Along the way, we stopped at a proboscis monkey sanctuary. These strange looking creatures feature a large overhanging fleshy nose, making for a really comical appearance. I am not sure to what extent it was an actual sanctuary rather than a tourist orientated feeding situation although it did provide for a population of monkey whose habitat has been largely destroyed by palm oil plantations. The monkeys typically live in a mangrove forest on the edge of rivers and the boardwalk out to their living area was alive with birds, mudskippers and insects. There were also long-tailed macaques, a very common type of monkey that has no fear of humans at all and are well known to steal what ever they can.

We pushed on and arrived at the rainforest lodge, situated on the edge of the Kinabatangan River, Borneo’s longest river. The lodge consists of a large open communal area and numerous individual chalets, all built on stilts and connected by high wooden boardwalks. The all-timber chalet was spacious, air-conditioned and equipped with a good ensuite bathroom. It was very comfortable and quite charming, set amongst rainforest with its resident population of mischievous monkeys. At times, the monkeys would descend on the eating area trying to steal food. Despite the pleas of the locals, some silly tourists insisted on leaving food where the monkeys could get at it, thereby encouraging their behaviour. The food was one thing, but phones, cameras and wallets are a bigger concern. They take anything.

The main activity consists of getting into long boats and being driven along the river spotting for wildlife. The main targets were long tailed macaques, red leaf monkeys, proboscis monkeys, hornbills, crocodiles, orangutans and elephants. We managed most, but failed with the elephants. There were a total of three cruises scheduled, but we begged off the 5:45am start and slept in. When there was word around of a herd of elephants some 30km down river, an afternoon trip was organized. We travelled at high speed down the river, entered a small quiet tributary and cruised the banks. A group of fishermen gave us the news that the elephants had moved on. We would have been happy to shrug our shoulders and say “C’est la vie” but the guide tried to make up for it by subjecting us to another hour and a half of cruising the river, occasionally stopping to watch yet more monkeys play.

The food at the lodge was all local, and incredibly good. They did have difficulty managing the concept of “COLD” Tiger Beer but were very obliging when groups of Aussies basically commandeered the icecream freezer to chill drinks.

On the second day, we drove to the nearby Gomantong Cave System. These are not so much a cave system in the normal sense, but rather enormous cavernous overhangs, with several pothole entrances in the roof. The caves are heavily populated by bats. Swifts also return every year to build nests along the walls and roof and there is an age-old tradition of harvesting the nests after the young are raised for bird’s nest soup. The nests sell for over $1000 a kilo so the dangerous practice of climbing long slender ladders to get to the nests is justified.  The place just reeks of toxic bat droppings. The ground literally crawls with huge cockroaches and the walls are home for big centipedes with extremely long legs. Some of the ground is moist and home for small crabs. We watched one dragging the body of a baby swift way as its prize. Fortunately, we were forewarned and wore helmets for the bat droppings and mask coverings to make the smell bearable. The boardwalk to reach the cave was more of a highlight, with the rainforest harboring beautiful insect life, some amazing butterflies and a lovely family of red-leafed monkeys. We also saw an eagle return to a tree clutching its prize of a bat.

Afte the cave, we returned to the lodge. The lodge was a wonderful place to stay, even though the whole nature wildlife experience was rather underwhelming. For some reason, bird life is scarce by Australian standards and I missed the constant chatter they create. Excluding a number of monkey species, there is little diversity of other animals and a river cruise does not compare with a similar cruises along a river in the NT. Another very upsetting aspect was the rubbish in the river. There were plastic water bottles everywhere. At one point, where a major snag had created a raft of branches, I estimated more than 500 bottles had been caught up. The local people claim to protect the natural forest for tourism and part of their cultural connection. They need to do something about the rubbish.

On the second day, a group of young travellers arrived, most with various European accents. I took notice of quite a few of the young girls, for all the wrong reasons. They had come to a local community where all the women are dressed to cover up and they chose to parade around in skin-tight two piece fitness wear. It must have been insulting for the local people, and I certainly found it very disrespectful. Not all of our Australian tour group were seniors like us, but everyone dressed respectfully and in keeping with the needs of the day’s activity. Being Australians, we did rather insist on finding a way of keeping beer cold, a challenge the locals seemed happy to help us with despite their own lack of alcohol.

Kinabalu Pines Resort – Sept 9

We both woke up with the good old Bali belly, or at least the Borneo version of it. I was only affected in the bottom end but Christine worked both ends. We had some Gastro Stop, which stayed the runs and another guest supplied some anti-nausea meds so we were able to pack and take to the bus in a reasonable condition. The day consisted of lots of driving, around 6 hours of it, taking Route AH150 across Sabah towards Kota Kinabalu. On the Malay Peninsula, intercity roads are extremely good, usually dual carriageway and formed to smooth out the hills. In Sabah, they are working on it, but the main arterial route has a long way to go before it is finished. Travel is slowed by the 50 kilometres of roadworks and the ever present palm oil trucks, not to mention the large potholes. We bumped our way eastwards, stopping a few times at road houses for toilet breaks or snacks. The bus refuelled at one point, everyone amazed at the 75c per litre. Apparently, fuel is subsidized by the Government. As we headed east, the country became increasingly mountainous, slowing our progress. The palm oil plantations gave way to thick jungle, making one huge green carpet around the chain of mountains that leads to the imposing Mt Kinabalu.

Our first real stop was at the Sabah Tea Plantation under the shadow of Mt Kinabalu. Here we had lunch, something that did not interest us much, apart from a bit of soup and tiny tastings of the five courses offered. The heavens had opened, the first rain of the trip, and it made up for the rainless days, pouring down in a true tropical downpour that lasted half an hour or so. We did buy some tea from the shop, being very impressed with all the tea we had sampled in Sabah, so much so that I have turned to drinking my tea black.

The tea house was in a district called Ranau. This was the end point for the infamous Death Marches, and there are several memorials around telling the story of those who suffered and died. Later, we shared a dining room with a tour group of Japanese, and I found myself wondering whether the tour programs are adjusted for them or whether there is the same focus on the atrocities of WWII.

After the tea house lunch, the plan was to visit a “Fish Spa”, where people dip their feet into the river and have all the old and loose skin eaten away by fish measuring up to a foot long. We questioned whether this would actually be fun, as did most of the others on the tour, and so none of us seemed upset when we were told that the heavy rain had caused localized flooding and the experience was off the agenda.

We settled in the evening at the Kinabalu Pines Resort, a series of chalets and a restaurant offering magnificent view of Mt Kinabalu. At 4050m, it is a serious peak and forms a strong part of the local cultural beliefs. Although shrouded in cloud, we got enough of a view to give great promise to the vista in the morning. The temperature too, is much lower, with the resort being around 2000m above sea level. It is strange to see hydrangeas, lilies and portulaca growing in the garden beds after so much jungle growth. Our room was not even air-conditioned and didn’t seem to need it.

Dinner at the restaurant was a huge disappointment. Feeling much better and ready for something substantial to eat, we found the food to be terrible, the first bad experience we have had in Borneo. Even the steamed white rice was unpleasant. The Google Reviews backed up our opinion. Nice place, poor food.

Kota Kinabalu  10 -13 September

We had a later than usual start at 9am, heading off to the Ranau Death March Memorial. There are four gardens, Australian, British, Bornean and Contemplative, each dedicated to one of the three groups that suffered so much under the Japanese occupation of 1942-45. We sat and watched an old Channel Nine report on the death marches, back when a group of Australian men and women re-enacted the same march of 260km in 2005. The footage included interviews with two of the only six people to survive the experience and it brought tears to everyone’s eyes. The tissues were out in force.  After the film, we inspected each of the four gardens. It was a moving moment. Everyone felt the same way, a sense of shame and disappointment that more is not made of this terrible event back in Australia. Perhaps it is because it was part of a stuff-up on the part of the Australian and US leaders. There was a clear opportunity for a rescue mission early in 1945, but it was abandoned after some wrong intelligence that said the prisoners had already been moved. General Blaney blamed MacArthur, General MacArthur blamed Blaney. More than 2,500 Australians and around 500 British died.

From the war memorial, we headed to the Kinabalu National Park for a walk through the Botanic Garden. With over 250 orchid species growing, it would  be an amazing place in flowering season, but despite the lack of colour, it was still extremely beautiful, with some of the fern and moss communities on the streamside boulders being truly amazing. Our guide, Sarah, was quite an expert on the flora of the area and especially knowledgeable about the medicinal properties assigned to many of the plants through the old tribal cultures. Sarah is obviously very proud of her culture and has done a terrific job of promoting her people throughout the tour.

Lunch was at a mountain-top restaurant, which proved to be a big improve on the Pines Resort, especially a deep fried mushroom dish, a some delicious crispy skin chicken. There should have been a wonderful view but the heavens opened once again, reducing visibility to mere metres and making for a mad dash back to the bus. It was a long slow drive down the mountains to Kota Kinabalu, with a brief stop at a souvenir market outlet.

Kota Kinabalu is a  medium sized town of around half a million people. It is modernizing but still has big areas that look like the 1970s, interspersed with modern blocks of offices , hotels and residences. Unlike the areas we have travelled through, Kota Kinabalu has a heavy Christian population (Catholic) and a large ethnic Chinese Malay community, so food offerings and entertainment is more diverse. It has a healthy tourist trade, with a number of top hotels and resorts. Ours is the Shangri-La Downtown, and claims to be 4 star but is definitely only a 3. It lacks a swimming pool and even a dedicated bar. Quite a number of people in our tour had issues with their rooms, demanding changes, but not always getting complete satisfaction in a highly booked hotel. To not have working air-conditioning in this climate is not on. We had no complaints though, other than the organization of breakfast being a bit of a shambles. There are usually three to four tour groups in and to try to service them with one egg chef is crazy. There are big bottle necks in the self serve process around the single toaster that requires two passes to brown the bread. I assume it has been this way for a long time and it is a fairly simple fix.

The first day of activities in Kota Kinabalu was a boat ride out to the tiny Manukan Island, around 8km off shore. We set out in two open boats, each holding 14 people and motored into a choppy sea in 15 knot breezes. In no time at all, we were totally drenched, some even resorting to donning a mask and snorkel. The water kept coming aboard, the only saving grace being that it was at least lovely and warm. Most had opted to wear day clothes with a change of bathers. We needed to have boarded in bathers.

Once at the island, we found a pretty little resort with a nice sand beach, and marked off snorkelling areas over extensive coral. However, the on-shore breeze stirred everything up and made a low surf line across the beach, so only swimming was really feasible. Once in the water, the sand gave way to a rock rubble bottom, so the best idea was to swim out to deeper water. The water was around 30 degrees and most of the group enjoyed a good swim. Before long, the looming threat of a thunderstorm appeared and we made for the shelter of the restaurant to have a beer, which being the only place on the island, cost more than double what it did elsewhere. The wind increased, shutting down the beach, but the rain skirted us, leaving us free to enjoy a good lunch of barbecued skewers, satay and seafood. After lunch, a second squall arrived and near horizontal rain poured through the open air restaurant area, making us evacuate to an indoor area to await a boat home.

Our guide had arranged one boat with more cover, a very good sea going powered catamaran. It would not take the whole group so 8 people opted for the open boat again, in much bigger seas. They probably fared better, because the skipper of the small boat took it slow, while the catamaran skipper opened up both engines and people seated on one side still got drenched. We were all able to laugh about the whole experience.

On our second day in Kota Kinabalu, we visited the Mali Mali Cultural Village up in the foothills of Mt Kinabalu. This proved to be the highlight of the tour. It is a living display of the old lifestyles of five of the tribes of Sabah, with reconstructions of the houses and long-houses used in older times, although some still exist today as part of a preferred lifestyle. As we were introduced to each tribe, there were people present to demonstrate cooking, making of rice wine, fire making, rope making and other traditional skills. Despite the fact that most of the 2 hour tour was spent in heavy rain, it was informative and entertaining. Much was made of the head-hunting lifestyle of the past, which, in some cases, did not completely disappear until after WWII. One of our guides said his grandfather had been a head hunter and still retained his heads. The head hunting was a way of life, attacking other groups within the tribe as well as other tribes. A man could not marry unless he had proved his strength by taking heads, with a desirable bride demanding as many as 20 heads. Some tribes only took male warrior heads, while others took any head, man, woman or child. They were dangerous times.

The final tribe was the Murat, the most feared of the head-hunting tribes. As we approached their hall, I was sent out to greet the head man, with instructions to keep my hands at my sides and speak directly, telling him where we had come from and why we were visiting. If he was feeling generous, he would spare our heads. I must admit, this guy looked fearsome. It was a laugh.

The tour finished with a cultural dance display. These are never our favourite thing, but this display was entertaining, the music being quite infectious and the dance skill amazing, especially the last one where warrior men moved their feet incredible fast across a grid of clashing bamboo sticks.

The meal the followed was all local traditional food and was delicious.

We had a few hours each day of free time in Kota Kinabalu. It is much like any Malaysian city, with a few shopping malls and a great many small shops. On the waterfront, there is a restaurant/bar strip that saw most of our group gather together each evening, much to the delight of the owners of the one spot we had somehow settled on. We even found ourselves buying pizza, a welcome relief from curry and rice, which proved to be a first class pizza by any definition.

The fresh markets are often a place to be avoided in Asian cities, but Kota Kinabalu’s was very clean and lacked the pungent smell of others. The fish market was filled with very fresh looking fish of all types, along with a wonderful assortment of equally fresh looking shellfish.

Overall, the experience has been a positive one and certainly represents one of the best value tours one could hope for. Some of our tour had bad experiences with Malaysian Airlines, with return flights cancelled and new flights occurring two days later with a return to Sydney via KL then Hong Kong. The extra two days was at the travellers expense and Malaysian Airlines told them to use travel insurance. Some people were critical of the tour operators, Trip-a Deal, but we found them to be very helpful and more than accommodating with us. Their responsibility for flights ends once the flights are booked, they are very clear on that. However, in our case, they laid on a private tour to make up for what we had missed by being a day late. Malaysian Airlines too, treated us very well to accommodate us in KL.

Sarah, our guide, and Muss, our driver, were both first class. Sarah had an encyclopedic knowledge of the various cultures of Sabah and a great sense of humour. Muss was a very careful and patient bus driver in some very difficult conditions. He also went out of his was to assist us all with storage of cold drinks in eskies and stopping at the best places to purchase alcohol, very necessary when looking after Aussies.

The tour was very busy and rather full on. A complete relax day in the middle would have been good. The guide was worried about the day we had to drive almost right across Sabah, a whole 280kms. However, it did take 6 hours but no one seemed overly bothered. We noticed that the tour operates in either direction. We came to the conclusion that it wouldn’t matter which direction you went, if anything, having the knowledge from the Mali Mali Cultural Centre early in the tour might have been a plus.

The group we were with was a diverse one, with mostly couples around our age or slightly younger, as well as a few young people and even one teenager. We found that there was a lot of mobility with no one forming little sub-groups and a lot of social mixing in the times we had to spare. We were all Aussies, from every state bar the NT and SA, and we were the only Western Australians.

The biggest disappointment was the lack of wildlife. Sabah is promoted as a wildlife destination, and it has some of the last remaining rainforest communities on the planet,  but sighting wildlife in the heavy jungle is difficult and a waiting game. To be honest, we see far more wildlife floating down a river in the Kimberley or NT than we did here.

The flight home went without a hitch, with only a 2 hour transfer in KL and an arrival in Perth around 1am.

Would we recommend it? Yes. Great value for money at $4600 for 2 people which included all the airfares, accommodation and most meals.