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.
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Gomantong caves are known from the stunning BBC's Planet Earth nature document. The caves consist of 16 separate halls, which all form a special ecosystem. Over 2 million bats are hanging below the highest parts of the cave roof to fly out for food before dusk. Guana from these bats gives a habitat and nutrition for millions and millions cockroaches, worms and land-dwelling crabs. Specialised mammal (can't remember the name) is feeding on the worms. Most importantly, at least for the Chinese and Malay's, these caves suppost huge populations of swiflets (suom. paasky), which are building nests from their saliva. The Chinese find these nests extremelly tasty and especially the white nests are of high value. Two harvesting seasons annually are strictly regulated and supervised events to ensure that these birds are produsing nests also for the coming years.
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