Pancakes with banana and honey for breakfast! Yum!!
I headed to the mini van station along the road, and managed to get on one that went to the junction before the orang utan sanctuary.
There was a taxi driver waiting trying to get a fare, and after some haggling I agreed it would be easier to do that, and headed on up to the sanctuary by taxi rather than walking.
After paying for the camera fee and leaving my bag in the locker I went around the plank walk around the forest, and enjoyed seeing nOrang Utan eating in the wild before seeing the daily feeding , where a mother and baby came to get free fruit.
After this was the rehabilitation area, where the rescued Orang Utans area either brought up or iven help to be able to get back in to the wild.
After finishing the tour, I headed to the video room and watched a video showing a short documentary including the release of one of the longer serving residents in to the jungle - all the orang utans in the sanctuary are expected to be re-released in to the wild.
The saddest part about this is that the exploitation of the land for Palm Oil has made the situation even worse for them than when the place first opened in the mid 70's.
After collecting my bags, I found a bus that took me back in to Sandakan so I grabbed that, having completely forgotten about the rain forest discovery center which in hindsight I really should have gone to see!
Once I was back in Sandakan I looked for information on getting the bus onwards to Semporna, as I wanted to go diving there. I found a shop that had Tourist Information sign outside it so went in, and discovered that it had been converted from a tourist information shop in to a coffee shop!
The people there were still helpful though and advised about getting the bus from the bus station, which is where I had been dropped e day before from Kota Kinabalu.
I made it back to the hostel, and called the bus lines at the bus station and was able to reserve a seat on the Semporna bus, and then spent the rest of the afternoon calling insurance to try and get the process started for claiming for hospital charges and other qualifying expenses incurred on the journey so far.