So, let me start with a confession. I'd never heard of Sandakan before this trip. If you had, and you knew of what happened here during the war, forgive me. If not, please remember this name. Lest we forget. It's written all over the war memorial, which leaves a skulking embarrassment as you begin to understand what happened here. In my defence, I hadn't forgotten, I just never knew. Because my mate from Mabul, Chris, had recommended I visited the PoW camp...

Imagine my joy when I heard a French voice at the Orangutan Rehabilitation Centre. Under my breath I muttered, "Le singe est dans l'arbre". (if this means nothing to you, don't worry) The Orangutan, meaning man of the forest, is utterly beautiful. Mysterious and human-like, this ginger ape has 96.4% of our DNA, and it shows in their every facial movement. You can see in an instant why people entirely devote their lives to protecting them. There's little that ...

I have not died, but I have gone to heaven. This morning I left the scummy diving backpacker outfit behind and piled aboard an Executive Coach cross country from Semporna to Sandakan. Sandakan, and it's smaller nearby sister village of Sepilok, are famous for one thing: orang utans. Once a day, the world's most loved red heads knuckle out of the jungle to be fed to be fed by humankind, and every backpacker for hundreds of miles around is there to capture it on...

For the first time since coming here, I am reminded that I am in a Muslim country. Indonesia was too, but Bali has always remained profoundly Hindu, and astutely commercial. And the diving communities around Semporna are so international and fluid that were it not for a big Mosque in town, you could be forgiven for thinking that there was no religion there at all. But Sandakan is different. In each of my previous bolt-holes, night life came to life at night, as...

Ahhh, back on terra firma. A few days diving off the islands of Mabul and Kapalai, and relying on Wifi powered by palmoil, has left me without an update for a few days - sorry about that. Well, I didn't get to dive the famous Sipadan dives; they required booking months in advance. However, I did reresh a few skills and saw an awesome array of turtles (one in particular was about 9 feet long), octopi, cuttlefish, ornate ghost pipefish (it's a real thing) and the ...