Sandakan We were greeted at the airport by Margaret, who we were staying with. She is Cathrine's, sister in-law's friend. Bit random I know- but she was an absolute legend!! Her house was quite near the airport and she showed us our room and left us to settle in a little bit. Her house was pretty spacious- the biggest I've seen in Sabah so far anyway. Her and her husband were really kind and her daughter let us use the computer and we looked at her photo albums, listened to her music. She's obsessed with a Korean musician called "Rain". She had loadsa posters of him and showed us video clips of his performances. Before bed, Margaret gave us some home made dough things. They were reeeally heavy on the stomach. They were dough filled with some mushrooms, chicken, Chinese tasting stuff (the family were Chinese). Sepilok- Orang-utans. On Monday morning (next day), Margaret drove us to Sepilok, orang-utan sanctuary. When we arrived, I bumped into Sarah and she had a raging fever- turns out she didn't get to climb the mountain cause she came down with a crappy flu thing so she'd just been chilling out at Sepilok, waiting to get better. Was so cool to see her again, so we went together to the11am feeding. Was crazily immense. As we walked into the jungle over a wooden walkway, an oober sexy orang-utan climbed down a tree right next to the path and landed on the wooden handrails. He walked along beside us (there were only about 5 people on the trail at the time) and he just stopped next to Aman, turned and looked straight into her eyes for about 10 seconds- was amazing. He was a big poser and kept strutting up and down, loving getting his photo taken. He then took the lead and led us down the path to the feeding platform. That was instantly the highlight of my GAP year at that moment (but it got even better!) There was a feeding platform about 3 meters away from the decking, where people could take pics. Loadsa orang-utans had come for their lunch and there were also other little cheeky monkeys there to nick the bananas. We had a couple of (baboon looking) monkeys sitting right in front of us- as in we coulda easily touched them but I think they're pretty vicious and we've been warned loads to keep a tight hold of cameras and bags as the monkeys tend to nick loadsa tourist's stuff. Anyway, the male baboon started humping the female full on infront if us. He was blatantly showing off for the cameras but the monkeys bits were on full view and it was a little too rampant for my liking. Got some hilarious photos though. The young orang-utans were sooo cute. They were tiny and- aw, just can't explain how immense they all were. They all had huge big brown eyes, and looked right at us and did amazing acrobatics on the rope that led from the jungle to the feeding platform. Like to move along the rope, they would do little cartwheels- sooo cute. Really hard to catch on camera- they went so fast that all of my pics turned out like big orange blurs! We stuck around for as long as we could, then went on a short jungle trail- didn't have much time since Margaret was waiting for Aman and I outside. We watched a presentation on fundraising for the orangutans and about the sanctuary in general. The presentation was given by one of the volunteer's we had previously met at NBC. She managed to persuade Georgie and I to adopt a baby orangutan together. Was soo cool. We adopted a baby called Sogo-sogo. She was born in January this year and is still in the rehabilitation nursery. Can't wait to get some pictures of her- cause they will send us an adoption pack. Sight seeing. Margaret was fab. She took us on a major sight-seeing tour of Sandakan. First we went for lunch and picked up her daughter, Teresa and her friend, who joined us for the rest of the day. We went to some lookout points at the highest parts of Sandakan- we could see out to some islands and over the town- which is pretty small, and no offense but the main town of Sandakan was a bit of a dive. Tis used for a lot of trade between the Philippines and Sabah and it's a bit "seedy" as Kirsty M said. We went to a Chinese Temple, which was relaxing (as all Chinese temples I have been to always are). Then to some more lookout points, and an old Church, which was strange to see as it was made from old brick and had proper stain glass, and you just don't see buildings like that here. Sandakan memorial park. This was pretty full on, as I expected. Approximately 2400 Australian and British Prisoners of War (POWs), held by the Japanese were killed by their captors- by starvation, overwork, beatings and punishments and the forcing of over 1000 sick and weak POWs on 3 marches under brutal physical conditions. In 1942 and 1943, the Japanese brought to Sandakan about 2700 Australian and British POWs (most of whom were captured at the surrender at Singapore in Feburary 1942). They were used as a labour force to build a military airstrip. In late 1944, the airstrip was bombed and destroyed so in early 1945, the Japanese decided to move the POW's 260km west, into the mountains, to a small setlement in Ranau. On 3 forced marched between January and June, approx 500 prisoners died. The remainder died at the Ranau and Sankakan Camps. Only 6 men survived- 2 escaped into the jungle during the second march, were assisted by local people and eventually picked up by Allied units. Another 4 escaped Ranua, again with the help of locals, who fed and hid them. The Memorial park consited of some ponds with lillies inside, some wild turtles and a pavilion, which gave detailed accounts of the Death Marches. There was one board that was especially touching, which gave quotes and interviews from the 6 survivor's- was really brutal stuff. We then went to the English Tea house, which was quite amusingly full of white people. Why come from the U.K, to visit Borneo, then sit in an English tea house?! Fair doo's we were there with locals. Admittedly, the scones I had were pretty much to die for (clotted cream and jam-mmmmm). Was so funny- it had a croquet lawn and everything! Crocodile Farm. And sorry to say it, but it was by far the worst place I have been to ever. Was just horrible to witness the cruelty of the animals kept there- I'm sure it's nothing compared to other zoo-type places around the world but it was enough to make my skin crawl. Basically, when we arrived, we walked over a bridge above loadsa crocs kept in a tiny tiny enclosure. We then headed to see a "crocodile show", which consisted of the men working there, pushing the crocs by the tale and shaking them in the water to get some action out of them, then play fighting with them- holding them in the air, then dropping them head first on the concrete. They were just taking the absolute pee- like dancing with them, throwing them about with complete disrespect. Then they brought out a huge croc that they just again treated like it was a piece of crap. The men poked it with sticks, expecting us to find that impressive, lay on top of it- etc etc- stupid nasty stuff. Then around the rest of the tiny park (if you can call it that), there were miniscule enclosures containing beautiful animals. One that I couldn't stay at for more than 2 mins was a bear. He was locked in a tiny cage with nothing but concrete and bars. He just looked at me with his head lay in his paws and his nose though the bars with the saddest big brown eyes- pleading to get out. He just looked like he had given up-was so so sad. Then there were the same cheeky monkeys we saw at the orangutan sanctuary, yet they were in awful condition. There were about 20 of them per cage, with nothing at all to entertain then, just tiny ledges to sleep on. And the worst thing- couldn't believe it- was that there were bananas hanging just out of reach of the cage so that the monkeys were reaching through and groaning to get at them and you could see the sores under the monkey's arms from the bars rubbing on them. Was just horrible. Visitors could pay RM1 to give them bananas so I got a few and they were obviously starving. I tried to get the bananas to the scrawniest little ones. Ahhh- just back from the deaf camp and I'm totally done in- will try to finish this though. O.K- so that evening Margaret cooked us a fantabulous meal of sweet and sour prawns, which of course Aman and I nabbed the recipe for afterwards. Twas an immense meal after a long day.