Travis' SE Asian Adventure: Hitchhiking On Malaysian

Haha I lived in Brunei for 8 years, I can't believe you're visiting it! There's not a whole lot to do attraction wise, but there's a lot of nature! Be sure to visit Temburong National Park, it's very beautiful and one of the only untouched primary rainforest in the area. It has a very high canopy walk, I believe one of the highest in the world, which has breath taking views in the morning with the fog! There's also Then be sure to visit Kampong Ayer (Malay for 'water village'), it's a whole town with schools, mosques, police offices, etc. built on the river and if you go down the river you will see proboscis monkeys (the nose monkeys), crocodiles and the massive royal palace! The town is right in the heart of the capital, Bandar Seri Begawan. If you're in the mood for luxury, visit "The Empire Hotel", Brunei's only 5 star hotel, which is a real testament to the wealth of the government because of the oil present in the country. Almost everything is gold plated, high ceilings, chandeliers, pool which spawns around the hotel, cinema, golf club, etc. The hotel is not very expensive because hardly any tourists visit due to it being a "dry country", meaning no alcohol for sale, anywhere. Be sure to go there for high tea! Other than that there's not a whole lot to do or see... Be sure to visit http://www.bruneitourism.travel/, maybe it has some more information.

Hope I helped!

Bravo! Well done!

Hey! I lived in Brunei for 15 years growing up (now studying in Australia) but I'm currently back in Brunei over (Australias) summer, hope you enjoy the country!

Would be great to hear more about the hotels you stayed at to get an idea of the "value" =)

Safe to say, you're REALLY lucky! That was enjoyable to read. However, not much learnt as I can't really base all my travels on waiting for a mistake fare. (Especially that those never happen in Egypt as we mostly have fixed prices, absurd!) Last post from Travis was very informative.

Wow! My head hurts

You travel like I would love to (but without children) We visited Indonesia this year, a truly amazing country. Enjoy.

Hi,

I'm from Brunei, lived here all my life. $50 for a round trip between Brunei and Singapore/M'sia is a pretty damn good deal. Even budget airlines, Airasia can't beat that price. There is not much you can do when you get here but you sure need 2 full days to see the capital itself, provided you have the logistics right. This is most challenging part for tourists who comes here. Taxi are scarce and buses are irregular. I can't really comment on these public transportation as I have never actually taken in my life.

Forget about Temburong excursion, you won't want to folk out USD 200-300 per head for the jungle trip which you can do it cheaply at neighboring Sarawak or Sabah. These are the 2 M'sian states on Borneo island sharing with Indonesia and Brunei. There are lot more things to do there. Kota Kinabalu, capital of Sabah is a short 45 mins flight. Sarawak is mere 30-40 mins drive from the Brunei border, the nearest city is Miri city close to Kuala Belait town of Brunei or Limbang town from the Brunei capital.

As for Brunei itself, you can visit the following:

In BSB downtown
1. Water village,
2. Omar Ali Saifuddin Mosque,
3. Royal Regalia,
4. Chinese temple
5. Morning market (just opposite the Chinese temple)
6. Museums

Gadong
1. Jame Mosque
2. Gadong wet market (at night, they sell fried and grilled food and day they sell flowers)
3. Fish and meat market (operate in the day only and inside the building, same location as the above)
4. Gadong shopping area

The above are all 10 min walking radius.

If you like hiking, you can bring your family to Tasek park where there is a playground and waterfall which is next to Radisson hotel and not far from downtown.

If you need anymore advise, just let me know. Thanks

Sounds great! I'm looking forward for the report! There's nothing wrong w/ multiple transfers through Singapore/KL -- we also had to do that on our SE Asia RTW extravaganza! Enjoy!

I am from KL and have visited Penang a few times. Hope you like Penang and KL. Penang is a really nice place to stay and take a look around while.

@Amanda -- You should see the spreadsheets that keep track of it all!

@B -- Yep, planning to go over the hotels. The deals there are just as good, maybe better, than the airfare.

Bruno & Paul -- thanks much for the comments on Brunei! Can't wait. Love to go places off the beaten path!

Abdel -- First, I am definitely one of the luckiest guys on the planet, at least among those not named Lucky.... 🙂

It can certainly appear lucky at first glance, but if it weren't this lucky break, it would be a different one... seriously, these kinds of fare sales, mistakes, etc. do happen a lot.

Travis--a quick question regarding nesting and sky team. I think nesting is when one has an over-arching round trip from to/from one city and then takes side trips within the time of the round trip ticket. Does that violate any rules? I've found a really good J fare to europe on sky team but don't want to spend a lot of time in the destination city for the fare....

Thanks!

Hope my post made sense.

Hi Sharp.

I'm not an expert on the rules of nested tickets, but I wouldn't worry about it in your case. I certainly didn't worry about it for our SE Asia trip.

I tend to think that the issue with nested tickets is when you book A-B-A with B-A-B inside of that to circumvent fare rules regarding minimum stays. In my case (and yours), it's more like A-B-A with B-C-B, B-D-B, and B-E-B inside (where C,D,E are not equal to A of course!) And it's not about avoiding any minimum stay requirements, but rather it's just easier to book those excursions separately. At some point you can't fit all of those segments on an itinerary even if you tried.

Travis: Thanks for the quick reply. I didn't want to wind up in a situation where the airline tried to charge me for the difference and/or confiscate the miles!