Today our plan is to check-out from Sepilok and check-into Sandakan city. But before we drive to Sandakan, we planned to visit the only other attraction around Sepilok which is the probacis monkey sanctuary. It is well over a 25 km ride. From Sepilok, we have to come to the main Sandakan-KK road, go towards KK for 10+ km and turn right into another road, drive for 15 KM to reach the sanctuary. The entire road is well paved and no problem driving. Once we enter the sanctuary, buy our tickets and know which platform to go to, there is a further 3 KM ride which is not a good paved road. Even then by driving slowly, a simple 2WD can reach unto the platform. This entire path is surrounded by palm plantation. Unlike the rehab center, one can see many monkeys once we enter the platform (not necessarily at the feeding time) and we could see many of them at closer distance. During the feeding, there were more monkeys emerging from the forest. Though we see enough monkeys which is the purpose of this visit, the surprising guest was a few black-and-white horn-bills that were sitting on the tall trees. Seeing the interest, the men working there tried to bring them closer to the platform by offering some fruits. But somehow the birds didn't move any closer to the platforms.
We were sitting at the platform sipping some cold drinks while almost all the visitors left the platform. Then it happened. A horn-bill reached the platform and eat the bananas. This is the closest we saw a horn-bill in our visit. Satisfied with this, we went back to the car, started our drive to Sandakan city which is over 40KM. The roads are straight forward and only to enter into the city, we have to navigate a few roundabouts and then a straight road took us all the way to the water-front area where we booked our hotel (NAK hotel). I have already checked upfront that a car park is available. We checked into the hotel and to our surprise, the room had a queen and two single beds and accommodated our entire family and still had huge space. After refreshing, we started walking along the Jalan Pryer road which has full of shops.
In the evening we walked to Agnes guest house by climbing the stairs with 100 steps. It is an English tea house where we got a nice sea view and good scones and juices. We then walked back by the road to our guest house. We had dinner at the roof-top restaurant in the hotel (a widely talked-about) with Italian pizzas and pastas.
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