Travel 011 : Sandakan, Sabah : 14 Jun 2012 : Sepilok

Subsequent to my last trip to Cambodia which is more of a lonely trip, this time our trip was to Sandakan, Sabah.  As it was school holidays and my daughters wanted a kind of adventure trip (also with budget and duration constraints), we choose to visit a part of Sabah.  I have already explored a 100 KM surroundings of Kota Kinablu, so this time visited around the second big city of Sabah.  There is nothing much to see in the Sandakan city itself but its neighboring villages provide  many natural attractions.  with 5 nights at hand, we split it among Sepilok, Sandakan and Kinabantan.  Reaching Sandakan is also not an easy one (well for family with young children).  It doesn't have an international connection and we have to transfer either at Kuala Lumpur or Kota Kinabalu.  We booked the entire trip (SG - KL - SDN and back) with AirAsia and the waiting time at KL was patient-testing. 

This is also my first trip (family and alone) where we have rented a car from landing until departing.  With Hertz giving a heavy discounted price, happy to drive a 1.6 cc sedan.  We started at Singapore by 9 in the morning to KL LCCT.  There was a three hours wait for us to board our next flight to Sandakan.  The LCCT in KL is a very busy airport with so many domestic and international departures dominated by AirAsia.  We had all the time to fill ourselves with McD, juices and for me to get a SIM card and a data plan.  It just took 5 MYR for a SIM, 5 MYR voice top-up and 20 MYR data plan (4 GB / 7 days) which is enough to cover our entire trip for voice and data.  At about 1pm, we started to Sandakan and reached there by about 4pm.  being a small airport with only domestic flights, Sandakan airport is quiet.  Took over my car from Hertz and headed straight to Sepilok.  We organized in such a way that we stay in Sandakan on Saturday and Sunday.  So, our first stop was Sepilok where we booked a big chalet for our family in a forest lodge very near to the orang-kutan rehab centre.  Sepilok is at about 20 KM away from Sandakan on the way to Kota kinabalu.  The highway from Sandakan to Kota kinabalu itself is just a two way (one lane each direction), but as I have experienced such roads in Kota kinabalu, came no surprise.  Once we entered the lodge (Sepilok forest edge lodge) in the middle of the forest setting, the family instantly liked its surroundings.  Our allotted chalet was even more serene with a huge room and a balcony overlooking a mini-forest.  As it was already over 6pm, we quietly had our dinner and rested.  It was a long day just flying and transiting and we have a big day ahead trying to venture into some of the forest walks.

A view from our chalet