Sandakan/ Sepilok (October 12 - 14, 2001 ) | ||
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We stayed at the Labuk Bed and Breakfast, run by Robert
Chong and his wife Annie.
It is located 15 miles outside Sandakan - relatively close to
Sepilok. The mini-bus drove us right to the door.
Robert had spent a number of years in Canada going to school and working before returning to his roots in Sandakan to run the bed and breakfast. Their three boys (10 yr old twins and a 12 year old) played with our gang - cards, computer games and badminton. The food was great. The rooms were slightly run down, but fine. Our goal in Sandakan was to see the Sepilok Orang-utan rehabilitation centre, and to organize trips to Sukau on the Kinabatangan River, and to the Turtle Islands. Robert drove us to Sepilok for the 10:00 AM feeding. Sepilok is one of the centres dedicated to rehabilitating orphaned orang-utans. There is a quarantine centre and a 'kindergarten' where young orang-utans are 'shown the ropes' by human trainers. When they graduate, they are released to an area of forest where they are fed twice a day. This feeding area is open to the public. The centre has an excellent interpretive centre and video presentation. The centre also currently has two Sumatran rhino's which they are trying to mate so they were not available for viewing. We learned that they are trying to duplicate the success of the Cincinnati zoo that recently announced the birth in captivity of one of this endangered species. We left Sepilok after about 2 hours and took the local bus into Sandakan where we bought a grocery store lunch. Sarah had called Crystal Quest (who manage the facilities at Turtle Island) earlier in the day and we were quoted a price of 1000RM (about $400) for one night at turtle island including all meals and boat transport. We had hoped to do better by seeing them in person and perhaps speaking to a manager. Crystal Quest was closed but by chance, Wildlife Expeditions (located in the same building) was open. We had already received a very expensive quote from their office in the Rasa Ria, so we were not that hopeful. Sarah started the conversation by saying "we know we probably can't afford it, but here is what we'd like to do". They gave us an incredible rate - they had a great promotional rate and then we got an additional 15% off. In addition, they did not charge for Chloe and Heather. Mark was half price. We ended up paying about 2200RM (just under $1000) for two nights at Sukau, one night at Turtle Island and two nights at Liberan Island. All meals, transportation and guiding was included for the 5 of us. It was exactly what we wanted at a price that was really quite good. We returned to the Labuk B&B and told them that we would be leaving the next day. I think we were all disappointed that we did not use Robert as our guide. Robert is very knowledgeable and enthusiastic about local wildlife, and does his own guiding to Sukau. By all accounts, he is excellent and I am sure we would have had a great trip with him - Wildlife Expeditions just came through with a package that was too good to refuse. |