Sandakan

After well slept night, I took a bus to Sandakan, the second biggest city in Sabah. The air-conditioned bus was surprisingly warm, compared to Malaysian Peninsula or Thailand. My clothing preparations led to excessive sweating. Landscape was more of that same than on the way to Semporna. Hours of palm-oil plantations. Some random strips of bush that reminded of the old rain forested times on Borneo.

On the way we dropped off bunch of approx. 15 years old smiling kids - more girls than boys - to a fenced military camp. There was sings where a soldier was shooting apparently a too curious guy from behind hanging on the fence. Guards were standing with machine guns at the gate. The boys were dressed in neat black trousers and a light-blue long sleeved shirt. Girls outfit had similar colours, but they were wearing a skirt and a light-blue scarf. Every kid was behaving remarkably well - almost like adults.

Althought Sandakan was supposed to be a relativelly big city (350 000 inhabitants) and once the capital of British Sabah, it felt the most boring town in the world. Once it maybe had the charm, but it probably lost it during the II World War, when the whole town was bombarded flat. Nowadays Sandakan a shabby town with worn out high-rise buildings. It reminds a bit of eastern European cities, that had their days of glory during the Soviet Union times. After 10 pm the city was totally dead. No night-markets, no food-stalls, no bar life. Only some drunk locals and few urchins on the streets. Not a single car. Since I had problems to find budjet accomodation from the city, my hotel-room compensated the situation. I had a wide-screen TV, DVD player, loads of movies, air-con and hot shover in my room, for the first time during the trip.

It was clear that I would not spend an other night in the city. However, I managed in what I was looking for. I booked a trip to Mt. Kinabalu. More about that later.