Both Kota Kinabalu and Sandakan are in Sabah which is in the north of Borneo. Tourists often fly to Sandakan Airport before heading to the Orangutan Sanctuary in Sepilok,  The Kinabatangan River in the Sukau area and Turtle Island near Sandakan. This area of Borneo is on your bucket-list if you want to love wildlife.

Asian Delight – Sandakan Airport

We ate fair bit at Asian Delight because it is the only restaurant at Sandakan Airport. We also give it thumbs up for having air conditioning. Here are a few dishes we ate there around the Christmas period.

The Koala’s Western style breakfast with a basket of fries.

My noodle soup.

A’s rice filled omelette.

I had to try a Nasi Lemak at least once. While I like dried fish this was a bit much for me. But the chicken wing was really good.

So good that I just ordered chicken wings and rice the next time we came to this restaurant.

As with most places, western style food is available is usually more expensive and poorer quality than the local dishes. The lemon ice tea they had here was very good.

Sandakan town

We visited Sandakan town on the 26th December and the place was packed with locals. We don’t know if it is like this all the time, but in hindsight, it was a Sunday and there was probably some crazy end of year sales on. In New Zealand, Boxing Day sales are pretty hectic but Christmas isn’t a big deal here, so I didn’t want to assume the same.

An Indian restaurant in Sandakan.

Nothing on the menu was more than 5RM. The bill for 5 of us for lunch including drinks 44RM / $20NZ / $14US total.

We checked out an indoor food market where we bought some fruit.

Kumara? Is that you?

Fresh baby corn. Yum. Tastes much better than the canned stuff and it’s got a lovely crisp bite to it.

I’m glad we went to Sandakan, but it’s a world away from the jungles of Sepilok. If that’s what you came to Borneo to see, you can probably give Sandakan itself a miss.