Bornaporecambalumpur: Borneo

After encountering an awesome, ancient ritual on Turtle Island, a wonder of the natural world, we returned to the mainland for a more relaxed day- a quick tour around Sandakan town, followed by a hop, skip and a jump to the other side of Sabah, to Kota Kinabalu.

First stop was a visit to a coastal shanty town, to see how some of the locals lived. At first glance, it was absolute squalor; Rickety wooden shacks on stilts, just meters above raw sewage and filth. We saw a child tip the contents of the bin into the water right outside his house, and we were told by the guide that the toilet consisted of a hole in the floor and a drop and a plop to shallows underneath the house.

But what surprised me was that in contrast to the disregard for their immediate surroundings, the inhabitants took great pride in the houses themselves. Each porch sported dozens of brightly colored pot plants and ornaments, some were even adorned entirely with ornate mosaic tiles. It may not have been an ideal spot for a home, but they were making the best of what they had. This made me think about how fortunate we are to live somewhere where these conditions would just not be accepted. I know it's a cliche but its so easy to take what we have for granted.

The rest if the town was obviously quite poor, although not quite as distressing as the shanties. Pollution is a problem here as well as, tragically, human trafficking.

So, my plea to you is to give up your 4* beach holiday every once in a while and visit a developing area. Spend your money there in whatever way you can in an effort to support the local community and help to create jobs, so that people can make a better life for themselves and avoid desperate measures. If you can't do that, look into other methods of supporting communities like sponsorship or charity donations. A little will go along way out here.

I do realise that in some ways tourism can be damaging. For example to the environment and sometimes even to the local culture, but if you are selective in what you do, tourism can also be very beneficial. Just look at Sepilok and Selingan Island. Without the money generated from tourism, these preservatory schemes would simply not be in place. Just think how your money can help local farmers (we've all got to eat when we're on holiday!), small businesses (hotels, shops, tour guides etc) and preservation (architectural, cultural, natural etc).

Just something to think about....

Anyway, enough of the pleading. On with the tour....

Next, we visited a small market. A bit smelly and stuffy, but in amongst the chaos we found a few little bits of beautiful....