Sandakan Tourism, Sabah Malaysia
Sandakan Tourism, Tourist places in Sandakan, Sightseeing, Sandakan Travel Guide, Holiday Packages, weekend getaways, places near Sandakan, reviews, map and trips
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Sandakan Fast Facts
- State: Sabah
- District:
- Famous for/as: Heritage,Pilgrimage,Lake,Wildlife Parks
- Language: Malaya,English
- Best Season:
- Weather: Summer 28 to 32°C, Winter 5 to 28°C
- Clothing:
- Local Transport:
- Pincode:
- STDCode:
Sandakan, Malaysia Overview
Sandakan 's old town was built along a narrow strip of land in a sheltered bay on the north eastern part of Sabah . Most visitors to Sandakan arrive with an agenda. This town isn't one to visit for the sake of taking in the sights. Early writers regaled the unmatched beauty of Sandakan bay looking out into the vast Sulu Sea. A small expatriate community of 80 or so made a life in this remote jungle town. Wooden houses on stilts lined the coast and large barges floated down from the interior filled with large, precious hardwood logs. timber ready for processing and for export back to Britain and Europe .
About a century earlier, this unpopulated land came under the suzerainty of the Sultan of Sulu who ruled the southern islands, (which was later to be part of the Philippines ), as with much of Northern Borneo . The mysterious wild islands in South East China Seas brought many adventurers and fortune seekers from Europe, ready to sacrifice their lives to the unknown in search of riches readily awaiting to be tapped in its natural resources. William Clarke Cowie, a Scottish gun smuggler from Glasgow, received permission from the Sultan to establish a small trading base. He built the first European settlement and called it Sandakan, which in Tausug (Sulu) means " the place that was pawned ".
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Must See Places in Sandakan, Malaysia
Sandakan, Malaysia History
In 1878, Sultan Jamalul Alam - Sultan of Sulu needed firearms to hold back advancing Spanish colonizers from taking control of the Sulu Archipelago. With limited finances and lack of firearm supplier, the Sultan leased his territory of North Borneo to Gustavus von Overbeck, an Austrian who was the Austro-Hungarian Empire's consul-general in Hong Kong . Overbeck found financial backing from the Dent brothers - Alfred and Edward Dent. With Dents' financial aid, Overbeck managed to procure the firearms and also paid the Sultan an annual sum of 5,000 Malaysian dollars. However, Overbeck could not interest his government to invest in this new land and he later pulled out of the venture. Alfred Dent, his brother and several others later formed the British North Borneo Chartered Company. Unlike Sarawak under the ruling of the Brooke Dynasty, North Borneo was run by a company. even though in 1888, it became a protectorate of Great Britain. The British Administration was only largely in charge of foreign relations.
Work started soon and forests were being harvested for its tropical wood especially so for its hardwood. In the mid-1930s, Sandakan's timber export reached 180,000 cubic meters, making it the largest timber-exporting port of tropical wood in the world.
The harbour was chock-a-block with barges laiden with timber. The Conservator of Forests, Henry (or more affectionately known as Harry) Keith had been in Sabah since 1925. In 1934, he married Agnes Newton who came to live in a modest colonial house on a hilltop, in Sandakan and made Sabah a dot in the world map with having written several books accounts of her life during her tenure in Sabah. Now the Sabah is commemorating her by having restored her home on the hill.