Eddie Nazreen, a kind and friendly driver in Sandakan - I visited Sandakan to took an individual nature tour. I enjoyed watching endangered animals roam freely in their natural habitat, including observing a feeding session at the Sepilok Orangutan Rehabilitation Center, seeing a troop of proboscis monkeys, and getting up close to a very rare Malay bear. Since I’m traveling by myself and planned to spend only one night in Sandakan, I contacted Eddie in advance to let him know the places I wanted to see and he pre-scheduled the appropriate tour content to ensure a lean trip. In my free time, I was taken to Sandakan town, food markets, and buffet lunches where only locals come, and I was able to experience things that I would not have been able to experience with other tour guides, thanks to their careful guidance. The car used for guiding was clean, new, and a great ride. I would definitely recommend him! This is a contact information: Eddie Nazreen +60 117 117 1178 [email protected]

Even though only an overnight stay it was crammed full of activities - Enjoyed the whole experience. Lots of options to add and no rush at each activity. Saw lots of wildlife and even a baby croc!

Amazing - Amazing trip. Our driver ahmed waa amazing nothing was too much trouble. We loved it all. We packed so much in to this trip. Wonderful.

Interesting tour - It was an amazing tour discovering the Sepilok reserve and the nature among the river kinabatangan. Our taxi driver was so nice and with particular attention to us. Maybe I had been preferred a guide tour who should explained more the magical attraction we visited. Good experience, very suggested!

Beautiful rainforest, river trip. - Our guide was excellent, what he had for eyes I don’t know, we did not see any pigmy elephants but we did see lots of different types of monkeys, probiscus, silver, capuchins. Also saw Hornbills, alligators, Python (in a tree branch) Orangutan in her nest with her baby, sandpipers, snake head bird, eagles, monitor lizard. The trip was excellent.

Beautiful Rainforest.. almost untouched and worth it. - I booked with Asia Green Travel. No fuss and easy. I stayed in a mixed dorm with AC at Borneo Natural Sukau Biiit Resort. For RM371, it covered all meals, 4 river cruises, 2 night walks and 1 day jungle walk. Transfer to and from airport or Sandarkan town or anywhere inbetween. I realised that the river cruise on day 1 and 2 go different places and it's good to sit with the same group so that you will explore the different routes.. This is unsaid so you need to be a little aware. Would suggest bringing a small binoculars or rent one. As with the rubber boots.. it's all for rent. Bring a good mosquito repellent (Deets doesn't work fyi) for the jungle walks.. no kidding.. and a torch for the night walks. The weather is cool at sunrise so a light jacket or windbreaker is good to bring along.

Amazing and wonderfully experience - Good things: the river, the cruise, the walking safari. Rangers very good; a lot of animals including the elephant Bad things: a lot of children, too small, the families must be all together in the same boats not disturbing the rest of the tourist or the animals. I can’t understand how parents take the 2 years old children to a morning cruise at 6 a.m. One more bad thing: food in the lodge is very limited. If you are not coming the first you will be probably left with nothing.

We liked it very much - The drivers/guides didn't really explained much, what was a little bit sad. Still we enjoyed the tour very much with extra visits to the sun bears and crocodikes. (We had to pay a little extra for the entrances of these facilities ofcourse). And they also took us to a Chinese Temple and the water village in Sandakan. Nice two days. Saw a lot of monkeys in the wild (incl. Orang-utangs), as well as pygmee elephants and some beautiful birds :)

A beautiful location but it rains alot! - It is a beautiful river area but the weather can be pretty bad. We were not able to do much on the river on the afternoon boat ride because of the heavy rain. We also heard that the morning ride was also fogged in and with low visability. I was hoping to see pygmy elephants but we were told they are no longer in the area. We did see a few monkeys on the river banks but monkeys are easy to find in many other places in the world so this was not worth the long journey to get there. Maybe your luck will be better. Good luck!

Total rip off - book directly through Sukau Bilit Resort and Sepilok Centre instead. - Complete rip off. The only good parts of this trip are: 1. The overnight stay at Sukau Bilit Resort and the Kinabatangan river safaris that come with it, which are an amazing experience and a must do in Borneo - however you can book these WITH an airport/hotel transfer and return from the resort themselves for hundreds of pounds cheaper so please just go and do that! Your driver booked through this tour is not one of the safari guides, they just drive you from place to place - so why pay hundreds of pounds for that when you could get a free transfer from the safari resort itself? 2. The visit to Sepilok Orangutan Rehabilitation Centre - although we didn't get to see the sun bears as promised. You can do this really easily yourself as well - taxi drivers in Malaysia are really honest and will give you a fair price to Sepilok and back (probably very cheaply!) so don't feel the need to book it through this tour. Everything else was a waste of time, and we didn't even get taken to the caves, one of the main reasons we booked in with the tour (to be fair they're closed at the moment, but we weren't told that until we were literally driving past them). The sights in Sandakan are really not worth visiting sadly, and not worth the crazy amounts of money they're charging to add them on to Sepilok and Suka Bilit. We also weren't taken to the English tea cafe but instead to a restaurant where the menus were literally crusted brown with filth. The drives themselves were complete ordeals as well. Our driver Ahmad was misogynistic and pretended my partner didn't exist, which was really weird. And his phone kept going off literally every 2 minutes of the long drives with an incredibly annoying ring tone. He also insisted on taking photos of us every half an hour, which was v intrusive. We never do this but we've asked for some of our money back for the experiences were missed at the very least, and the company hasn't responded to us, weeks later. Do yourself a favour and avoid MAM Holidays Malaysia and this trip specifically.