Day Three - Sightseeing Begins

Better night's sleep last night, I pretty much slept through, except for the fact I was woken up by a bloody telemarketing call from the UK at 3am (must remember to put my phone on silent). We have managed to sort out the air-conditioning, so it's not so freezing as well! It absolutely chucked it down overnight, but it was really nice to hear the rain on the roof and the sound of the jungle.

Today, half the group was headed into town with driver John to get familiar with Sandakan, and its facilities. The rest of us took a 15 minute walk up the road to the Rainforest Discovery Centre. By the time we arrived we were sweating from head to toe, it literally felt like a torrent of water running down your back – something we are all going to have to get used to! The centre features a canopy walk and a garden of various local plants – it cost 15 MYR to get in, but it was reduced to 7 for us as we are volunteers (so about £1.20). It was quite interesting. We didn't see much, but I managed to spot a squirrel jumping from tree to tree, a few birds and an interesting bug that looked like a bush cockroach. A lot of the orchids etc didn't seem to be in season, but the ones that were there were still intriguing.

We then headed back to the rest house for lunch before going out in the afternoon to the Sepilok

Jungle Resort, which is just around the corner from us. Here you can pay around £3 to use the pool – so we spent a few hours having a swim, reading etc. Highlight was a water monitor that swam into the pool a couple of times – and man was he fast! He then crawled out and lazed about at the top of the shelter over the kid's pool. Then it was back to the rest house for a delicious dish of pumpkin in coconut milk - my favourite meal so far.
But the best news of the day – one of the staff (Sel) fixed our shower!! Thank goodness – we now have water pressure! Which is going to be even more badly needed once we start working next week.