Labuan War Cemetery
Today we called Gary’s mom on our Skype account. We had trouble getting Skype to work because Microsoft didn’t think we should be in Malaysia. Finally after several attempts to authenticate the Skype app on Linda’s phone we got it going. In the end we used our VPN. We ended up being quite a bit later for breakfast. No big deal but the buffet food was already cooling down.
After a huge amount of food and several coffee we headed by foot to the Labuan war cemetery. Over 3,908 soldiers from WW2 are buried in this commonwealth war cemetery. It gives you an idea how many people died in WW2 and since in other needless wars. This is actually the largest war memorial in Malaysia
The cemetery was immaculately kept as can be seen in picture at the top of this page. The size of the place is a bit overwhelming and the young age of the soldiers is heartbreaking. The nationalities of the soldiers are mostly Australian and British with some from New Zealand and India’s Signal Corp., as well as locals who fell while fighting to liberate Borneo. They were killed during the Japanese invasion of Borneo or died as prisoners of war. Many of the POW’s buried here died in the “Death March” a distance of 240 km from Sandakan to Ranau during the months of January to April 1945. You know how badly the Japanese treated allied soldiers. There were over 2,600 POW on the island and only 6 survived because they managed to escape and were hidden by some of the locals.
At the cemetery a huge cross was built and named the “Cross of Sacrifice” as a symbol of their bravery and sacrifice. A memorial service is held on Remembrance Day every year on the first Sunday of November to pay respects to the fallen heroes of WWII. Many war veterans, families of war victims from Australia and other Commonwealth countries attend the service each year.
We ordered a Grab to take us to the Labuan Bird Park. Entrance to the park was only 5 MYR each, about $1.50 CAD. Sadly the place has seen better days, likely pre-covid it would have been much better. Some of the Parrots, Cockatoos and Sun Conures (Sun Parakeet) are kept is less than ideal conditions. The cages are bare of trees or natural perches and small. The rest of the park is inside several connected huge domed net buildings. They have natural trees and a nice environment inside the domed buildings. We saw Peacocks and a Golden Crested Crane which was slightly aggressive but stunning to look at.
From the bird park it was a short walk to the Labuan Chimney. Built in the early 1900’s, this historical landmark is a remnant of Labuan’s coal mining era. The chimney measures over 32m (106 feet) in height and is made from over 23,000 pieces of unplastered red bricks imported from Britain. The chimney tower was originally thought to be a ventilation shaft for brick or iron smelting facilities or nearby underground coal mines. However, recent excavations revealed no tunnel underneath and no traces of smoke or burning to suggest its use as a chimney as popularly believed, making the tower’s existence and purpose a puzzle.
It took over half an hour to finally get a Grab to pick us up from the Chimney- it seemed much longer than that as we were in the middle of no where! We had our hopes up once that we had a ride and then the driver cancelled. Needless to say we were very thankful when we finally got a ride back to the hotel. We were hot and tired! We had a beer to cool down and then went down to the pool for a couple of hours.
Today was one of the best weather days we’ve had so far in the trip. It was sunny and hot all day. After swimming we headed back up to the room to change and it clouded over and rained briefly. By the time we were ready to head out it had cleared. For supper we went to JJ Nazar Restaurant in town. The food was amazing and we really enjoyed our meal. We had chicken malai tikka, dal makhani, channa masala, 2 garlic naan and 2 mango lassi. Total cost for our meal was 77.30 MYR or $22.30 CAD. Thankfully a Grab ride was just around the corner so we didn’t have long to wait to get back to the hotel.
We had previously tried some of these street food crepes. They are good for a light lunch coupled with ice cold lemonade with herbs or calamansi. Both drinks were good but too sweet which is typical of. It seems Malaysians like sweets!