fantastic experience in sabah (Sabah)

Member Name: dawntooke

Product:	Sabah
Date:	05/06/01 (251 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: very low prices, friendly people, amazing things to see and do

Disadvantages: cant think of any!

Last summer I had my first experience of travelling outwith Europe and North America. My friend and I spent 4 weeks in Sabah, and 1 week in the neighbouring state of Sarawak. There was an abundance of activities for tourists, and it was all very very cheap too. My advice would be to use the Lonely Planet guide to arrange your own trips and accomodation, rather than booking tours from home. This works out a lot cheaper, and it is very easy to do.

Sabah is fairly easy to get to-we flew to singapore, and from there, got a bus to johur bahru, and a flight from there to kota kinabalu in sabah. ahem...i would recommend getting the airconditioned bus from singapore to johur bahru..its only an extra 60p or so, and it saves sitting with your rucksack on your knee for nearly an hour and a half! I have learnt my lesson

Flights are really cheap...i think that one was about £40, and then any further internal flights were only about £15-20 single. Needless to say we did a lot of flying. You can usually get buses too, but i dont think its worth the extra time.

The main activities which I enjoyed were:
Sepilok orang utan sanctuary in Sandakan, and Uncle Tan's jungle camp(trip down river to spend the night in the jungle). Uncle tan charges 15 ringgit per night(about 3 pounds) for accomodation and 3 delicious meals...his banana pancakes r amazing. He will also organise your trip to jungle camp once you get to Sandakan, and provide transport to the orang utan sanctuary. See Lonely Planet for details.

Other things which you can arrange from Kota Kinabalu are white water rafting, and trips to some of the beaches in the National Park just off the coast, where you can dive, snorkel and sunbathe. There are also lots of pubs and clubs in KK...altohugh as a girl, i was glad there was a big group of us- i dont think I would have felt safe with just one other person.

Mount Kinabalu, the highest mountain in South East Asia. Again,this is easy
to arrange, and the satisfaction on reaching the top is well worth the effort. it also works out fairly inexpensive. From the capital of Sabah-Kota Kinabalu, you can arrange the whole thing. We managed to get a min bus with driver to drive 5 of us to Mt Kinabalu, and he stopped for us to take pictures, to buy fruit, and also to go to Poring Hot springs, and a canopy walkway in the jungle. This only costs us about £6 each(5 of us altogehter) to hire the bus for the whole weekend.

Pulau Sipadan is good for diving but the resort is expensive(and there was a kidnap last year!)

Sabah is a great holiday destination, especially for students as the cost of living is so cheap..only a few pounds a day for food and accomodaiton.

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