The Road to Sandakan

Sue had to spend a couple of weeks in Kota Kinabalu ("KK"), the capital of what was once British North Borneo and is now the Malaysian province of Sabah.  Over the weekend we decided to travel to Sandakan on the far side of Sabah to visit her fellow Project Manager Suzanne and her friend Mindy.  Sue took a plane and I hired a 150cc motorbike from the good people at "Gogo Sabah" http://gogosabah.com/transportation/.

I had a great 300 kilometre blast up winding mountain roads to Mount Kinabalu National park then down the other side on a road that became straighter and dominated by palm oil trucks pumping black diesel fumes as they laboured to the nearest mill.  The town itself is a charmless frontier outpost at the arse end of Malaysia facing the Philippines, which it eyes suspiciously.  The Sabah hotel does however have one of the finest views in the world from its bedroom windows.

It rained for most of our two-day stay which we spent failing to get into the sights for which the area is famous - the orangutan and sun bear sanctuaries at Sepilok.  Still we had fun nattering with Mindy and ambling along wet rainforest walks.

On the way back to Kota Kinabalu I broke my journey with an overnight stay at the Sabah Tea Gardens, which offer accommodation in a tourist version of a Dusun longhouse.  The tea estate is in the high country near Mount Kinabalu.  The climate is very similar to the cool damp atmosphere of the Sri Lankan tea-growing country around Haputele, where we stayed two years ago.

Over breakfast the next morning I watched the most fantastic dawn unfold over the tea plantation and the neighbouring hills with the mighty Mount Kinabalu looming out of the clouds as they separated and coalesced.  I returned to KK later that morning to greet Sue with a sunburnt and grimy but smiling face.