Day 13- Night Out in Sandakan

Well it was my last day working with the juveniles today. It was nice and quiet again. We had two mums with babies visit from the forest – one of the babies left its mum for quite a long time and was swinging from the ropes with the others. He was so tiny – but apparently he is three years old, he just isn't developed as much as the guys in the centre because they are given a much wider variety of nutritious foods than what they will generally get in the wild. It is amazing to witness the special bond between them - something our little ones have sadly missed out on!

Gelison had to come back in early though as one of the mums bit him – it is wise for the younger ones to stay away from a protective mum! Chiquita is unwell, so didn't make it out today. At the end of the shift, when we make up the milk, we always make a litre for the ones that hang around outside. You just pour it straight into their waiting mouths – they love it. Today the mum was there and we got to see the baby up close – his eyes were massive! A true treasure. It was sad saying goodbye to them all – but we will get to work with them again in a few weeks.

In the evening we all went into Sandakan for our first night out. Amoy called her taxi-driver friend to send three taxis to collect us. Much to our delight, I discovered he was the driver with the amazing taxi we had seen out and about previously – which has over 40 Malaysian flags on the roof! I had heard from one of the tourists that the inside was a sight to behold too – so I had to travel in that one. The inside is full of diamontes, pins, stickers and more – including a flashing disco light that changes colour, and a tv screen for karaoke. We had ABBA on – so Steph and I were singing along for the whole journey. Our driver's name was Arshad and he was great! He speaks very good English and was pointing out lots of things and trying to teach us Malay words throughout the trip. The service is incredible – he drove us from venue to venue, and waited for us - from when he picked us up at 6.30pm through till 1am! And all for 150 Ringgit (so about £27 split between four people!).

First stop was the curry house - which is apparently very popular with the locals. It was an experience, but probably not one I would care to repeat! It consisted of very basic plastic tables and chairs, and it was all a bit chaotic trying to order, as we didn't understand a thing on the menu. I ended up with a vegetable dahl (a tiny portion which came in

a plastic cup and was rather tepid) and a garlic nann – which was very nice and had great chunks of garlic in it. Then for a desert I had a roti boom – which was a bit like a pancake with maple syrup – but it was lighter, almost like puff pastry. It was delicious. very sweet though, and I couldn't quite manage it all. Jack ordered a roti tissue – which was like a giant filo pastry cone drizzled in syrup. It was so tall! I often wonder whether having Westerners visit puts them out – they didn't seem too happy to see us at first. Some of the chicken dishes were interesting – a few were cold and a rather dodgy colour, so glad I'm vegetarian! There was also a poor feral, pregnant cat that kept begging for food – which was quite sad. But it only cost about £4 and it was an experience.

Then it was on to the market – which is basically two rows of stalls selling various tat – flip flops, foods, cheap plastic toys etc. Not much to see really – it is a heavily Chinese area our driver was saying. Although we did catch the Chinese dragon dancing – which was amazing. These two guys in a dragon costume jump across a bunch of tall poles to the drum beat – I have no idea how the guy at the back sees where he is going! I have also never had so much attention! The locals (particularly the men) find you very exotic – and everyone says hi. I even heard one guy asking his kid if he wanted to get a picture with me – it's like you're a celebrity!

Then it was on to Melody – a popular karaoke club. It was pretty empty when we arrived around 9pm. Smoking is allowed inside, so I absolutely reeked by the time we left! The drinks system is a bit of a weird one – you can't buy individual drinks, only bottles (i.e. a bottle of whisky, vodka etc). So we opted for a bucket of six Tiger beers between three of us – and it was fairly expensive, no different to the UK really. But the bottles were huge!! It was so much liquid I could only manage one and a half – so I had a vodka afterwards. I don't know if it's the heat or what – but I felt quite drunk after that. Which is super weird as it really isn't much to have!

We requested quite a few songs, and some got played, but it was largely Malaysian music and it all sounds the same frankly. It was all really heartfelt and mournful as well, not very upbeat! But I think they all take it very seriously – most of them were very good singers to be fair. No doubt we were super annoying yet again, with our very loud and boisterous attempts! We headed off about 1am – much later than we expected to be, and sang along to ABBA the whole time in the taxi home. An interesting night out for sure!