Welcome to the Jungle! I swear, that song is talking about Borneo. We fly into the city of Sandakan, in the area of Sabah, in Borneo. We decided it cost basically the same to fly here than to the region's capital, Kota Kinabalu and then travel the 7 hours overland to reach here. Why Sandakan? It's near the Kinabantangan River, which is one of the best places in the world to see orangutans in the wild.
The actual journey sounded relatively simple enough (and for the most part, it was):
1. Wear all of our winter stuff & heavy hiking boots so we can get our checked luggage weight to 15kg.
2. Get the 8 a.m. bus from Melaka to Kuala Lumpur
3. Take the flight
4. Try to find the random mysterious bus mentioned casually in guide books that will take you to Sandakan
It is 30-35 degrees Celsius outside (86-95 degrees F). We are wearing sweat pants and jeans, with sweat shirts. Who would have thought this was appropriate attire for the bus & the plane! We were absolutely shivering (even put a blanket on top of us).
Flying into Borneo, all you can see outside is rivers, jungle, and the horrible eye sort of palm tree plantations.
After we'd landed, and they opened up the back door of the plane, near where we were sitting, I swear the heat hit you like some cinematic cloud of badness. You could just feel it coming your way and then once it hit you - you made the sweat pants realize their destiny. Welcome to the Jungle. And it was 5 p.m.
We then tried to find the mysterious bus stop. If you exit the airport, you have to walk a bit to find it (if its still running). The guides all said it stopped running at 5 p.m. It was 5:10. When we made it to the bus stop, we took a guess and just asked a small mini-van there if he was the bus. This kindly older gentlemen said no, but I'll take you. Stranger danger? Hardly. This guy was listening to 1940s jazz music in a grandfatherly kind of way. How much could we pay him? He said nothing. Just helping.
We owe one pay it forward ride in the future.
Overall Sandakan, not too interesting. We will be happy to leave it when we head towards Sakau and the Kinabantangan River tomorrow.
The actual journey sounded relatively simple enough (and for the most part, it was):
1. Wear all of our winter stuff & heavy hiking boots so we can get our checked luggage weight to 15kg.
2. Get the 8 a.m. bus from Melaka to Kuala Lumpur
3. Take the flight
4. Try to find the random mysterious bus mentioned casually in guide books that will take you to Sandakan
It is 30-35 degrees Celsius outside (86-95 degrees F). We are wearing sweat pants and jeans, with sweat shirts. Who would have thought this was appropriate attire for the bus & the plane! We were absolutely shivering (even put a blanket on top of us).
Flying into Borneo, all you can see outside is rivers, jungle, and the horrible eye sort of palm tree plantations.
After we'd landed, and they opened up the back door of the plane, near where we were sitting, I swear the heat hit you like some cinematic cloud of badness. You could just feel it coming your way and then once it hit you - you made the sweat pants realize their destiny. Welcome to the Jungle. And it was 5 p.m.
We then tried to find the mysterious bus stop. If you exit the airport, you have to walk a bit to find it (if its still running). The guides all said it stopped running at 5 p.m. It was 5:10. When we made it to the bus stop, we took a guess and just asked a small mini-van there if he was the bus. This kindly older gentlemen said no, but I'll take you. Stranger danger? Hardly. This guy was listening to 1940s jazz music in a grandfatherly kind of way. How much could we pay him? He said nothing. Just helping.
We owe one pay it forward ride in the future.
Overall Sandakan, not too interesting. We will be happy to leave it when we head towards Sakau and the Kinabantangan River tomorrow.
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