Finally after a week I got the chance to check out Brunei's well known water villages - these are just a short ride across the river from the main part of Bandar seri Begawan. I was touring with Adam Tan, the owner of Travel Hub.com (info@travelhub.com.bn ) a local agency that offers a number of personalized tours in Brunei. The homes are on stilts (parking is underneath for each family's personal boat, if they have one) and all the homes are … [Read more...]
Ulu Temburong National Park
The rainforest is one of Brunei's primary attraction and the Trandi Lodge puts one just outside the Ulu Temburong National Park entrance (via wooden boats up a fast moving brown colored river). The rainforest canopy walk has to be one of if not the highest in the world at 42 meters. Its built entirely of aluminum and towers above the forest floor. Our boat driver raced up the fast moving river with a powerful engine at his disposal. Minute … [Read more...]
Brunei Blogger Meetups
It was nice to meet up with a number of serious local food and travel bloggers in Bandar Seri Begawan this past week. I knew I wanted to visit Brunei for several months but bought my plane tickets 5 days before the actual flight! @zulfadly found me on Twitter at the last minute and was gracious to show me around the city, especially its culinary offerings as well as introduce me to several of his blogger friends. I met the following … [Read more...]
Jungle Greetings!
Greetings from the heart of the Temburong District in Brunei. As I write this its pounding rain so hard on the tin roof that if I was to talk to you on the phone you would absolutely not hear me, or I would have to scream! We drove for 45 minutes on narrow winding roads - using both sides of the road at times as the road was well flooded in places, our van bottoming out in the water. There is a film crew from Hong Kong here - 9 men and one … [Read more...]
Touring Brunei
Today I traveled with Michael, a tour guide for for a small local travel company ( info@travelhub.com.bn ). I signed up for one of their very niche tours - sightseeing the part of Brunei that produces all of its oil and natural gas under the control of Brunei LNG. Travel Hub offers a variety of day and multi day sightseeing tours within Brunei. This particular tour may not appeal to a lot of people but oil and gas are what drive Brunei's … [Read more...]
Greetings from Brunei
After using Bangkok as a base to visit all its neighboring countries and their neighboring countries I had run out of new countries to visit within say a three hour plane ride of Thailand (don't get me wrong, there are many places I haven't yet visited in the countries I've already been to). However I had not yet visited Brunei and with a non stop Royal Brunei flight from Bangkok lasting about 2.5 hours it was fairly easy to get here and spend a … [Read more...]
A journey through time in Sabah
Sabah is part of East Malaysia, situated on the island of Borneo in Southeast Asia. Administratively this island as a whole is divided between both Indonesia and the Kingdom of Brunei as well as Malaysia itself. Sabah occupies the northernmost tip of Borneo and its apt name alludes to local weather patterns! Translating to "land below the wind", Sabah's name is a reference to the nearby Philippines and the propensity for typhoons in that region. … [Read more...]
Los Angeles, CA – Museums
We have personally visited & reviewed the following 130+ Los Angeles and Orange County museums. We spend a lot of time in the City of Angels, therefore this section is continuously updated with new and updated reviews as time permits. Note: Monday is the worst day to spend visiting museums in Los Angeles as by numbers, most of the museums are closed (but not all). The small museums often maintain very limited hours. African American … [Read more...]
Los Angeles, CA – Irvine
Irvine (current population over 230,000) takes its namesake from James Irvine, the founder of Irvine Ranch (along with two partners). This huge ranch was originally 185 square miles of land (about a 1/4 of the entire present day Orange County). Irvine's son, also named James - inherited the ranch and then founded The Irvine Company in 1894. After his death in 1947 the company was controlled by his Foundation and stock holders. Eventually it was … [Read more...]