Sandakan travel guide

Malaysia · Top sights · trending spots

Sandakan was the capital of British North Borneo and was destroyed almost completely in 1945, so the town is new and the reason to come is the forest behind it. Sepilok rehabilitates orphaned orangutans a short drive from the airport and feeds them twice a day on a platform in the forest.

Boats on the Kinabatangan river find proboscis monkeys, hornbills and, with luck, pygmy elephants at dusk. Gomantong's caves supply the nests for birds' nest soup and hold several million bats.

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Next long-break window · based on public holidays in United States11.26 – 11.291 leave → 4 daysPlan this trip

Top 10 sights in Sandakan

Ranked by Wikipedia language editions — proven fame.

© CEphoto, Uwe Aranas · CC BY-SA 3.0
Sandakan District Mosque
The largest mosque in eastern Sabah, standing beside the stilt village of Sim-Sim with its dome facing the Sulu Sea. It was built to serve a population drawn from across the region's Muslim communities.
Tiqets Klook
© CEphoto, Uwe Aranas · CC BY-SA 3.0
Sandakan Memorial Park
A memorial park on the site of the prisoner-of-war camp from which the Sandakan death marches set out in 1945. Of some two thousand four hundred Australian and British prisoners, six survived the war.
Tiqets Klook
© CEphoto, Uwe Aranas · CC BY-SA 3.0
St. Mary's Cathedral, Sandakan
The oldest church in Sandakan, founded in 1883 when the town was capital of British North Borneo and now the seat of its own diocese. Its stone walls came through the bombing that flattened the rest of the town in 1945.
Tiqets Klook
© CEphoto, Uwe Aranas · CC BY-SA 3.0
St. Michael's and All Angels Church, Sandakan
The oldest stone church in Sabah, begun in the 1890s at the urging of the clergyman William Henry Elton, who also founded the school beside it. Its granite walls carried it through the wartime destruction of Sandakan, and it stands on the town's heritage trail.
Tiqets Klook
© CEphoto, Uwe Aranas · CC BY-SA 3.0
Sandakan Jamek Mosque
A twentieth-century mosque in the centre of Sandakan, serving the town's Malay and Suluk residents and named after a local religious teacher.
Tiqets Klook
© CEphoto, Uwe Aranas · CC BY-SA 3.0
Sam Sing Kung Temple
A Chinese temple built in Sandakan in 1887 and among the oldest buildings in the town, dedicated to three deities including the goddess who protects seafarers. It survived the destruction of the town in the Second World War.
Tiqets Klook
© CEphoto, Uwe Aranas · CC BY-SA 3.0
Puu Jih Shih Temple
A Buddhist temple built in 1987 on the Tanah Merah hill above Sandakan bay, paid for by the local Chinese community. The terrace in front of it looks straight down over the harbour.
Tiqets Klook
© CEphoto, Uwe Aranas · CC BY-SA 3.0
Sandakan Massacre Memorial
Three monuments in Sandakan to thirty Chinese residents, most of them members of the underground resistance, executed by the Japanese during the occupation. They were among the town's leading families.
Tiqets Klook
© CEphoto, Uwe Aranas · CC BY-SA 3.0
Sandakan Heritage Museum
A local museum on the first floor of a civic building in Sandakan, covering the town's founding, the Chartered Company years and the destruction of 1945. It is a stop on the marked heritage trail.
Tiqets Klook
© CEphoto, Uwe Aranas · CC BY-SA 3.0
Chartered Company Monument
A monument in Sandakan to the men of the British North Borneo Chartered Company, the private company that governed this territory from 1881 until the Second World War.
Tiqets Klook

Popular tickets & tours in Sandakan

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Trending now

Based on 2025 Wikipedia pageviews — popular places beyond the top 10.

© CEphoto, Uwe Aranas · CC BY-SA 3.0
Agnes Keith House
The house of the American writer Agnes Newton Keith, whose books on Borneo — including an account of her internment by the Japanese — were widely read in the 1940s. It is now a museum furnished to the period.
Tiqets Klook
© CEphoto, Uwe Aranas · CC BY-SA 3.0
Tam Kung Temple, Malaysia
A Chinese temple at Sandakan. It honours Tam Kung, a god of the sea, and was built with money raised by the fishermen and traders of the town.
Tiqets Klook
© CEphoto, Uwe Aranas · CC BY-SA 3.0
Sandakan War Monument
A monument near the Sandakan waterfront to the townspeople and Allied prisoners who died in the Second World War, raised by the British after the town was rebuilt from almost nothing.
Tiqets Klook
© CEphoto, Uwe Aranas · CC BY-SA 3.0
William Pryer Monument
A monument to William Pryer, the Englishman who founded Sandakan in 1879 for the Chartered Company after the earlier settlement burned. It stands near the harbour he chose the site for.
Tiqets Klook

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Top 10 sights in Sandakan

Ranked by Wikipedia language editions — proven fame.

Sandakan District Mosque

The largest mosque in eastern Sabah, standing beside the stilt village of Sim-Sim with its dome facing the Sulu Sea. It was built to serve a population drawn from across the region's Muslim communities.

Tiqets

Klook

Sandakan Memorial Park

A memorial park on the site of the prisoner-of-war camp from which the Sandakan death marches set out in 1945. Of some two thousand four hundred Australian and British prisoners, six survived the war.

Tiqets

Klook

St. Mary's Cathedral, Sandakan

The oldest church in Sandakan, founded in 1883 when the town was capital of British North Borneo and now the seat of its own diocese. Its stone walls came through the bombing that flattened the rest of the town in 1945.

Tiqets

Klook

St. Michael's and All Angels Church, Sandakan

The oldest stone church in Sabah, begun in the 1890s at the urging of the clergyman William Henry Elton, who also founded the school beside it. Its granite walls carried it through the wartime destruction of Sandakan, and it stands on the town's heritage trail.

Tiqets

Klook

Sandakan Jamek Mosque

A twentieth-century mosque in the centre of Sandakan, serving the town's Malay and Suluk residents and named after a local religious teacher.

Tiqets

Klook

Sam Sing Kung Temple

A Chinese temple built in Sandakan in 1887 and among the oldest buildings in the town, dedicated to three deities including the goddess who protects seafarers. It survived the destruction of the town in the Second World War.

Tiqets

Klook

Puu Jih Shih Temple

A Buddhist temple built in 1987 on the Tanah Merah hill above Sandakan bay, paid for by the local Chinese community. The terrace in front of it looks straight down over the harbour.

Tiqets

Klook

Sandakan Massacre Memorial

Three monuments in Sandakan to thirty Chinese residents, most of them members of the underground resistance, executed by the Japanese during the occupation. They were among the town's leading families.

Tiqets

Klook

Sandakan Heritage Museum

A local museum on the first floor of a civic building in Sandakan, covering the town's founding, the Chartered Company years and the destruction of 1945. It is a stop on the marked heritage trail.

Tiqets

Klook

Chartered Company Monument

A monument in Sandakan to the men of the British North Borneo Chartered Company, the private company that governed this territory from 1881 until the Second World War.

Tiqets

Klook

Trending now

Based on 2025 Wikipedia pageviews — popular places beyond the top 10.

Agnes Keith House

The house of the American writer Agnes Newton Keith, whose books on Borneo — including an account of her internment by the Japanese — were widely read in the 1940s. It is now a museum furnished to the period.

Tiqets

Klook

Tam Kung Temple, Malaysia

A Chinese temple at Sandakan. It honours Tam Kung, a god of the sea, and was built with money raised by the fishermen and traders of the town.

Tiqets

Klook

Sandakan War Monument

A monument near the Sandakan waterfront to the townspeople and Allied prisoners who died in the Second World War, raised by the British after the town was rebuilt from almost nothing.

Tiqets

Klook

William Pryer Monument

A monument to William Pryer, the Englishman who founded Sandakan in 1879 for the Chartered Company after the earlier settlement burned. It stands near the harbour he chose the site for.

Tiqets

Klook