Journey to Sandakan [Part Three] - Sabah Experience

Arriving in the Fish Farm

The fish farm and the house.

After the breakfast and small shopping in the town, we depart to Dad's Fish Farm. Approximately 50minutes from the Jetty, passing by Mangrove forest, and some nameless beaches before we reach our destination. As soon as we arrived, the villagers already prepared Live crab and fresh prawn for us. This is how they prepare the food, pretty simple, just boil the water, and place them accordingly. Without cleaning the crab by removing the intestines, we were expected to eat it the local way. It was a new experience to have it this way, normally we have numerous kind of way to cook it, especially the Chinese way! i really got to taste the real flavor or the crab, a little bit fishy, but it was acceptable. 2KGs is too much for 4 of us, we can only finished half, and another half we gave it to the villagers.

 Place the live crab accordingly, and watching them turning reddish.

It's all about seafood, and Sandakan!

It wasn't a small crab, but it was definitely a dead crab, waiting to be eaten.

Watching the crab turning from black to Red, looking deliciously good!

Then, Wan and her friends were eager to see the Giant Grouper that live in the fish farm, so we request the villagers to pull the net to see the true face of this giant fish that can grow up to 150KGS! It was not an easy job to pull up the net, as the net is full of organism that can cause itchiness in your hand if you contacted them bare handed. However, the villagers were kind of used to it and maybe have developed the immune system to it. To get this job done, 4 strong man involved, just to fulfill our curiosity.

 Trying the effort of net pulling, attempt by Wan and Jess.

 Energetic fish, that keep splashing water on us!

Before we go back to the town, we catched some fishes to be brought back to Kuala Lumpur and Kota Kinabalu. It's easy to do the fishing job, use a fishing string, with a hook, put some fresh fish or prawn as bait. And you will get the fish in a split of a second, easy peasy. Though, it was a tough job to hold the string bare handed, if you are not careful, you might get cut on your palm! We chose a few one-Kilogram Grouper and red fish to be brought back to town and frozen it. Those 4KGS were just too big and heavy to hand-carry in the plane.

 Fishing in the fish farm? No problem!

 To show the size of the fish, It's a normal grouper.

Third time throwing the fishing net solely for the sack of photographing purpose.

Life of the villagers were pretty simple, and lay back. They will go to town once in a week, or even a month, depending on their daily stock availability, as well as to refill gasoline. Throughout our conversation, i learned some knowledge about managing the farm, what will be the turn back of the farm, how much cost involved, price of different kind of fishes, and the rehabilitate of different sea creatures. They have certain belief as they live with the sea, and earning living with the sea. They lived in a group and help each another when one encounter obstacles and problems. There are also schools and convenient store on the water near to the fish farm we went, so students go to school by boat everyday, we can't imagine that happen in our life, its a totally different experience! Will definitely go back this place to stay overnight for my next visit!

Have you been to Sandakan? Tell me how do you feel about this city! Do u have any tips to share when traveling to Sandakan? Or Any suggestion for an unique itinerary? Comment Below!