Sandakan Heritage Trail :
1- Agnes Keith House
2- St. Michael's and All Angels Church, Sandakan
 

01 Masjid Jamek (Town Mosque)
02 William Pryer Monument
03 Stairs with Hundred Steps
04 Agnes Keith's House
05 Remains of an old staircase
06 Goddess of Mercy Chinese Temple (Tokong Kun Yam)
07 St. Michael's and All Angels Church
08 Sam Sing Kung
09 Malaysia Fountain
10 Tourist Information Centre
11 Heritage Museum

Start Sandakan Heritage Trail in front of the Masjid Jamek, a mosque of  more than 100 years.

Proceeding westwards along Lebuh Empat is the Sandakan Hotel and the Police Station which is opposite an open square where various memorials are located including the William Pryer Monument, the Sandakan Liberation Monument and a memorial to a number of early explorers and pioneers who helped open up North Borneo.

William Pryer was the founder of modern Sandakan in 1879. He cleared the bay of pirates and took the first steps to eliminate slavery which was rampant at the time.

Here too is the Heritage Museum (Muzium Warisan). There are some  old photographs of Sandakan. Downstairs there is an exhibition hall.

Next to the police station is a modest sized High Court.

Alongside the court building, a flight of 100 steps leads us up the hill.

This pathway emerges onto Jalan Istana. Here you can turn right if you want to extend your walk by 1.7km to see the Chinese and Japanese Cemeteries, or turn left if you want to stick to the shorter Sandakan Heritage trail.

The latter brings us to the English Tea House and Restaurant, a pleasant spot to take refreshment, enjoy the views over the town. The menu includes tea-time sets with cucumber sandwiches and scones, traditional English favourites like fish and chips or shepherds' pie, or popular Asian dishes.

The English Tea House is located next door to Agnes Keith's House which is one of the highlights of the tour. Agnes Newton Keith wrote her famous three-part autobiography, “The Land Below The Wind”, “Three Came Home” and “White Man Returns” about her experiences in Sandakan and the house plays a big role in her tales.

The original house was destroyed during the war but was one of the first permanent timber structures to be rebuilt in 1947. It is now a museum and is a fascinating place to visit for anyone who is familiar with her books.

The next stop on the official Heritage Trail map is the remains of an old staircase which apparently once part of the Chinese Consulate before the War.

If you like Chinese temples you can extend your tour from here, marked in yellow on the map, by walking to the Tam Kong Temple via Jalan Aman.

It is a long way though - if you also want to see the Hindu Temple, Kuil Sri Sithi Vinayagar it will add 5km to your walk.

Tam Kong is interesting because it is a temple within a temple (probably by building the new temple over the top of the old one).

The Hindu Temple is fairly modest in appearance and there are better examples elsewhere.

Continuing on the red trail, downhill on Jalan Singapora and take a look at the Goddess of Mercy Chinese Temple (Tokong Kun Yam) which dates from the 1880s.

Next, just before the pedestrian bridge we turn right up a flight of steps which brings us out at St. Michael's and All Angels Church. St Michael’s is one of the very few buildings in all of Sabah to be made of stone.

With its Gothic style architecture it looks as if it has been transplanted from an English village. The construction of the church, which took almost 20 years to complete, was begun in 1893, using ironwood, brick and then stone. During the wartime bombing of Sandakan, the church caught fire and only the stone walls remained.

The church was rebuilt and today, remains one of Sandakan’s most attractive monuments.

The beautiful stain glass windows in the church are a more recent addition, donated by Australians as a memorial to Australian and British POWs and as a thanksgiving to the courageous people of Sabah who helped them.

Close by is the Catholic St. Mary's Cathedral. This is a modern structure as the original church did not survive the War.

Continuing to the bottom of the hill along Jalan Puncak is  the padang, where colonial types would have played cricket,

Next is another Chinese temple, Sam Sing Kung. The name means "three saints temple", referring to Kwan Woon Cheung, the deity of righteousness, Goddess Tin Hou, a deity worshipped by fishermen, and Emperor Min Cheong, a deity of students, to whom anxious school children and parents pray for good examination results.

Sam Sing Kung Temple was built by Chinese communities from Guangdong Province, namely the Hakka, Cantonese, Hainanese and Teochew. It was completed in 1887, making it one of the oldest surviving structures in Sandakan. One of the temple's more important artifacts is a bronze bell.

From here visitor pass the Malaysia Fountain and are now back in the heart of the town where we can see the Harrisons Trading Building, and the two oldest banks in town, HSBC and Standard Chartered. Our Sandakan Heritage Trail ends here.