Thursday 17 July Sandakan day trip

Now we know why we've seen so many tourists in town – Sandakan is a centre for wildlife tourism. The rally bus trip picked us up at the yacht club and drove us to the Sepilok Orang Utan rehabilitation centre which as opposite the Sepilok Sun Bear rehabilitation centre. We have been fortunate to see orang utans in Kalimantan, Indonesia and at a couple of places in Malaysia, but we've never seen sun bears, the smallest of the eight species of bear worldwide and more endangered than orang utans.

The centre was established by one man who realised these delightful little bears had been overlooked in terms of conservation. Arboreal by nature with the diminishing rain forest and increasing palm oil plantations their natural habitat is shrinking plus the cubs are valued as cute pets and the adults valued for the bile from their gall bladder, claws and as fare for unscrupulous restaurants. The centre has 36 rescued animals, some were voluntarily given up, others rescued like the young adult who arrived yesterday, discovered and snatched from a restaurant kitchen. You look at these delightful animals and wonder why? The answer is greed and necessity. To a poor farmer the sale value might mean education for their children and no more working for the family.

I digress and we know this all too familiar story. The centre can accommodate up to 40 bears as each one has to return to their individual cage each night. Six are considered suitable to roam the 1.4 hectare enclosure during the day but the aim is to be able to release all of them back into the wild. With the lack of space there isn't enough room for a breeding programme. We learnt this from the knowledgeable rangers at the enclosure and from a informative documentary which was being shown in the visitor centre.

Our encounter with the bears was wonderful. At first they were up trees or under bushes but patience was rewarded as they started to move and two came to the fence underneath the viewing platform, rolling, turning, looking for food. The rangers threw coconuts in for a treat and we marvelled at the strength in the claws to tear off the husk and using one sharp claw poke out one of the three 'eyes' in the top of the fruit. Mary then lay on her back and poured the milk into her mouth. When that was drunk the coconut was a toy and when that was done she cracked it open and ate the flesh from inside.

We are now big fans of sun bears after spending almost two hours with them.

Next call on the tour was the Rainforest visitor centre 200m along the road. On paper this didn't promise much but we were happily wrong – a canopy walk which raised us to the level of the treetops with hornbills, monkeys and giant squirrels. There's a lake, an informative visitor centre, orchid garden and a restaurant which took an hour to deliver a sandwich. We had ice creams for lunch and saved an hour.

Perhaps the highlight of the day (I joke) was our last port of call, the big supermarket on the outskirts of town. A shopping opportunity not to be missed with a coach waiting to take us directly back to the yacht club; no bus to wait for, no long walks with heavy bags. It was a treat.