Travel Journal - Sandakan

 

We did some sight-seeing around Sandakan the rest of the day.

 

First up was the Pu Ji Shiih Buddist temple, with a very impressive entrance.

 

 

Ignorantly, the three of us were wandering what was with all the Nazi symbols. Florence asked one of the Chinese people in the temple who almost burst a blood vessel......it's not the same, and is not to be confused!!!

 



 

 Picture of the temple from a restaurant at the bottom of the hill. Really beautiful.

 

We met up with some of Florence's family for lunch.

 

After lunch we went to visit the Parish of St. Michael, founded in 1888. The complex consists of the church as well as a school. Florence's father ran the school, I believe (or was heavily involved), and the family is Christian. Florence is actually quite vocal about her Christianity, which is quite brave given the society within which they live, which is definitely Muslim. (And don't let me start on the toilets!)

 



 

We also went to the Observatory Tower, which had magnificent views of Sandakan bay.

 

 

 

After this Karl had us drop him off at his favourite watering hole while Florence took me to the Agnes Keith House.

I must confess that I hadn't heard of Agnes Keith before the trip, but she was an American writer, married to Englishman Harry Keith, Conservator of Forests, Game Warden, and Director of Agriculture. Agnes wrote what became a classic book on the life in British North Borneo, called the Land Below the Wind.

(Next book on my reading list)

Another book Agnes Keith wrote, of the war years, called Three Came Home, was subsequently made into a Hollywood movie.

 

If you have the time, I encourage you to google 'Sandakan Death Marches'. Here is a short excerpt copied from Wikipedia :

The Sandakan Death Marches were a series of forced marches in Borneo from Sandakan to Ranau which resulted in the deaths of 2345 Allied prisoners of war held captive by the Empire of Japan during the Pacific campaign of World War II in the Sandakan POW Camp. By the end of the war, of all the prisoners who had been incarcerated at Sandakan and Ranau, only six Australians survived, all of whom had escaped. It is widely considered to be the single worst atrocity suffered by Australian servicemen during the Second World War.^[1]

 

We passed Ranau when travelling to and from Kota Kinabalu, and visited the War Memorial there.

Again, a very humbling experience.

 

We met up with my brother after Agnes Keith House and The English Tea House.

And he kept us waiting for him for a god few hours while he drank with his friend.

On the way home he wanted to stop off and buy a couple of beers , and got quite shitty with Flo when she tried to tell him he'd had enough, saying he would drive himself into town to get some when we got home.

My blood ran cold....really didn't feel comfortable being in that environment.

I'll point out that Florence doesn't drink.

Needless to say, he got his way, and we stopped on the way to buy him some beer.