Fri, 27 Jul 2012 16:27:30
Hi to everyone,
On behalf of our group (4 families comprising 15 tourists) and especially our family, we wish to say what a wonderful and moving trip we had to Sabah recently.
Through Lynette Silver, we were able to find out some precious details regarding the life of Chris’ grandfather, POW Theodore Feldbauer, which sowed the seed of making a trip to Borneo. We had such a fantastic time exploring your region with its interesting and abundant flora and fauna, climbing Mt. Kinabalu – surely an incredible feat and experience, and paying our respects at the various memorials from Sandakan to Ranau. It is always such a difference to know about such events historically (academically) and quite another to stand on the same dirt as those who gave their lives for our freedoms. Chris found it especially moving to have been able to touch the relics that were present in the Sandakan camp during the war years and that his grandfather may have touched. We carry precious images in our heads of all those important spots, and the rest of our party were interested and thankful to have been educated in such an important, but little known aspect of our country’s history. They were very interested in Lynette’s books and the education fund set up by the latter for girls.
In conjunction with the above, what made the trip so pleasurable, was the fantastic service of Mr. Tham. We were sorry not to have met you, but thank you for your patience and extensive knowledge in helping us with our itinerary. And last, but not least, our guide and drivers were superb – we could not praise them highly enough. We felt safe and comfortable being transported in well maintained vehicles with good drivers who always offered to mind our belongings. And our very lovely guide, Catherine, was the epitome of helpfulness and smiles as well as being organised, timely and very knowledgeable. She was sensitive and knowledgable about the death marches and in addition, was very intuitive as to when her presence was required and when it was not, during the whole trip. And we were delighted that she had been requested to be ‘on stand by’ over the last three days of our trip. Through her knowledge and organisational skills we were able to arrange some fabulous water activities for the kids and seamless transport.
We were exceptionally well cared for and extend our heartfelt thanks to you all.
Chris and Anna Snell
on behalf of the
Ashton, Galanos/Gibbon, Newton/Cazalet and Snell families.