Sandakan

Sandakan, on Sabah’s east coast, is best known as the access point for some of Borneo’s most significant wildlife sites, including the Sepilok Orangutan Rehabilitation Centre and the Bornean Sun Bear Conservation Centre next door. The town itself carries traces of its colonial past and wartime history, but most visitors treat it as a staging post before heading to the Kinabatangan River or Sepilok’s forest reserve. A short stay here makes sense of the wildlife sites without slowing the wider itinerary.