Back to civilisation

It was another early start for us today though as there was space on the morning safari for us to go again...we couldn't say no! And thank goodness we didn't because we saw wild orangutans! There were a few but most scarpered pretty quick on hearing the boat noise. One large male stuck around though and we watched him for a long while whilst he enjoyed a leisurely breakfast of fruit high up in the trees. Incredible! We also saw and heard a lot of gibbons...the sounds they make are pretty distinctive! On this boat ride we also saw eagles, macaques and hornbills.

After breakfast back at camp we started the long journey back to Sandakan; an hour long boat ride followed by a two hour minibus ride. A quick lunch at Uncle Tan's B&B then we were off to our hostel.

On arriving at the hostel, we were met by the friendliest hostel staff we've come across yet. The owner kept feeding us! She served us tea anad banana fritters when we checked in then proceeded to offer us pancakes and bits of sticky sweet coconutty rice patty or the next half an hour while she chatted to us about our plans in Sandakan.

We explained that we would like to go on an overnight trip to Turtle Island, a place we are both desperate to visit. On her advice we walked to the Crystal Quest port down the road who are the operators of Turtle Island. I had emailed them several times over the last few weeks but had gotten nowhere. So off to the office we went! Our luck was not in...the tour for the day after was full! The lady advised us to go to some of the tour operators in town as tickets are sold to them to sell onto the public. Unfortunately, the prices were up to three times higher booking through a tour operator instead of directly with Crystal Quest. And we could not afford the prices they were quoting. :-(

The rest of our evening was spent blogging (during which I think I managed to crash the website from trying to upload too many photos at once...it was down for about an hour...oops!!) and sneaking out for a McDonalds!

We've also decided that we'll chance our luck tomorrow morning and show up at the Crystal Quest port early in case there are any cancellations for the Turtle Island trip...wish us luck!!

Tam xx