Sandakan Daytrip

Today started with a taxi trip to the Sandakan Australian War Memorial on the site of the notorious WW2 POW camp. Tears were rolling at the unspeakable brutality at the end of WW2 when Japanese tortured and murdered 2,500 locals, Aussies, Brits and others in a series of death marches from Sandakan to Ranau. Hugely moving display, monument and simple forest gardens that tell a horrendous story of Australia's largest WW2 atrocity that remained mostly unknown because only six of the 2,500 survived to tell the tale, all escapees.

On a lighter note, we moved on to Sim Sim Traditional Water Village where the community lives in stilt houses over the water. Wooden houses interconnect with wooden, raised walkways past open front rooms with pot plant gardens. Feline rat catchers lounge off duty on the railings.

Climbing high up on the hill above Sandakan, we visited the colonial home of Agnes Keith, the American writer whose books about her life in Borneo depict the time heading to the end of the British colonial era. There is an air of tropical elegance and the decay of power in the exhibits. Huge rooms and wonderful reddish brown, wooden floors make the furniture seem like it floats in the room space.

 

Last stop before lunch was up more tight climbing bends to the huge, garish, Puu Jih Shih Buddist Temple with great views over the port and the Buddist swastika.