Saturday 19th July
I have decided to put anchorage points on this
blog. Just in case anyone needs the
info. This one, here in Sandakan:
05 degrees 50.407N
118 degrees 07.481 E
And all I can say thus far is: very close to the yacht
club, lots of fishing boats flashing by, lots of intermittent current and
tide. Not sure what will happen when we
try to pull the anchor up… Depth: 10m.
Lots of rubbish in the water, eg. A dirty nappy, and just a few minutes
ago, a poor sad teddy…
We are getting to
be very fond of Sandakan. A very
interesting city, nestled in amongst steep hills, and then spreading
over and around the countryside. And
such a torrid, tragic history…
Last night our
lovely friend Chee (chance-met in our now favourite little Chinese restaurant
in downtown Sandakan) invited us to have dinner in a skytop restaurant, owned
by his friend Anton Ngui.
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| Anton & Chee |
We very much
enjoyed the food and the company, and the chat.
Poor John and Catherine were still very jetlagged so they left at nine
pm (a respectable hour) and went back, to sleep sleep SLEEP on 2XS. We stayed and chatted, about all manner of
things – politics, agriculture, the history of the region, the
environment. And then Chee took us back to
the yacht club and we found we could NOT get back to XS… Pete contemplated a
swim across the dark and dirty water – we are anchored very close to the jetty…
But oh NO, not a good idea. In the end
he rang Chris, on Out of the Blue II, who very kindly put his dinghy back down into the water and ferried us home, where
John and Catherine were in Sleepyboboland with a totally unresponsive phone
under John’s head…He was ready, willing and able to leap into the dinghy to get
us, but how could he know, when his phone was not responding to our desperate
pleas??
Chee ( a heroic
soul) had offered to pick us up at 8,30 for a tourist trip. We were going to
hire a car but this was so much nicer… First thing he took us to St Mary’s
church, one of the very few buildings to survive the destruction during World
War II – Sandakan is almost entirely rebuilt, hardly anything remains from
earlier years. This church was the last
stop for the POWs, brought over from Singapore and sent off to the camp where
most of them laboured and died. Apparently
as they marched up the hill to the church the Australians sang Waltzing
Matilda…so very sad… So very few of them survived.
There is a
scholarship scheme at the school, created in memory of the Australian POWs, as
well as a series of glorious bright stained glass windows. The scholarship is set up for sixteen girls
to attend boarding school, all of them from very poor backgrounds. We saw the children (both boys and girls) at
work, all looking very cheerful in a large shady outdoor classroom, beaming out
at us. (And yes it is Saturday! I think they do half days.)
Next stop – the
Rainforest Centre. We thought
Catherine and John would like the
fabulous skywalk. We didn’t see any
monkeys or hornbills, but we did see a mysterious bird silhouetted in a tall
tree:
And some beautiful
glowing fruit:
Anton and Chee had
told us about this fruit, only found in Borneo.
It is apparently very delicious, consisting of little white segments
inside the softly spikey outer ball. I
REALLY want to eat one…
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| suspension bridge - VERY wobbly! |
In the plant
discovery section I took a photo of some info about palm oil…
Not going to
comment…all a vexed question really.
We had a very
pleasant lunch at a roadside restaurant (laksa for some, chicken rice for others,)
it was time to brave the Sandakan Memorial Park. Oh so sad…and very beautiful. Where there was once a scene of bleakness,
torture, starvation and horror there is now a beautiful tropical garden full of
tall trees, butterflies. And lots of
information, presented as pleasantly as possible but…
The local people
suffered terribly too. And so did the
prison guards… They too were starved and beaten, and they took it out in their
turn on their captives. A ghastly cycle.
By mid afternoon
we were ready for something more cheerful, so off we went up the hill behind the
city centre. And who would expect to
find this, in deepest darkest Borneo?
An English
teahouse!
It was just
delightful. We had tea with scones, jam
and cream. Oh so delicious!
The tables
overlook at the city, and we could see the rooftop bar where we had sat the night
before.
We did not get up and play croquet on the carefully manicured lawn…
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| Catherine and John |
But we did relax
and enjoy the moment.
So, so heart-breaking
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