We left the reserve and continued up the coast. It would be a few nights till my flight to Vietnam so had planned one more stop in Borneo at a town called Sandakan.
On the way there we stopped at a huge cave where they harvest nests to make bird’s nest soup: A delicacy in many parts of east asia.
The van dropped me and Cassie off. It appeared that we were the only visitors there so got a guide to ourselves. He walked us to some raised walkways and into the cave. Once inside we could see workers clambering up enormous rickety ladders to the ceiling where the birds nests were. It was gloomy, lit only by a gap in the roof at the far end.
The smell was pretty dreadful - most likely caused by the huge piles of bird poo that lay beneath us. The piles seemed to have lives of their own. The brown black surfaces constantly moved and shifted, and as our eyes adjusted we realised it was because the piles were full of cockroaches. There were millions of them everywhere. On the ground, the walls, the walkway and the handrails. At one point I idly flicked one from a handrail into a poo pile. Cassie noticed and was horrified. She gave me a bit of a telling off. I tried to make the case that at least I wasn’t regularly making countless birds homeless, but somehow what I did was far worse.
We made it to Sandakan and booked a room in a mid range hotel. The town was quite pleasant, if a little run down looking. We had three days here. On the first day I decided to follow instructions for a walking tour of Sandakan that I found in a tourist leaflet.
I have to say the tour was a little underwhelming. It took me to a temple which was closed, a dirty clocktower in the middle of a roundabout and a chinese graveyard which, whilst expansive and probably more interesting than some of the other tour items, still was not anything to write home about.
The next day, after writing my mum a postcard about the Chinese graveyard, Cassie and I researched what was nearby and decided to book a ticket to an interesting looking proboscis monkey sanctuary that afternoon.
On the way there we stopped at a huge cave where they harvest nests to make bird’s nest soup: A delicacy in many parts of east asia.
The van dropped me and Cassie off. It appeared that we were the only visitors there so got a guide to ourselves. He walked us to some raised walkways and into the cave. Once inside we could see workers clambering up enormous rickety ladders to the ceiling where the birds nests were. It was gloomy, lit only by a gap in the roof at the far end.
The smell was pretty dreadful - most likely caused by the huge piles of bird poo that lay beneath us. The piles seemed to have lives of their own. The brown black surfaces constantly moved and shifted, and as our eyes adjusted we realised it was because the piles were full of cockroaches. There were millions of them everywhere. On the ground, the walls, the walkway and the handrails. At one point I idly flicked one from a handrail into a poo pile. Cassie noticed and was horrified. She gave me a bit of a telling off. I tried to make the case that at least I wasn’t regularly making countless birds homeless, but somehow what I did was far worse.
We made it to Sandakan and booked a room in a mid range hotel. The town was quite pleasant, if a little run down looking. We had three days here. On the first day I decided to follow instructions for a walking tour of Sandakan that I found in a tourist leaflet.
I have to say the tour was a little underwhelming. It took me to a temple which was closed, a dirty clocktower in the middle of a roundabout and a chinese graveyard which, whilst expansive and probably more interesting than some of the other tour items, still was not anything to write home about.
The next day, after writing my mum a postcard about the Chinese graveyard, Cassie and I researched what was nearby and decided to book a ticket to an interesting looking proboscis monkey sanctuary that afternoon.
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