Ken Curtis' blog Travel «

I’m in JB right now, having got here yesterday at about 2pm. I’m about 60% happy to be here at this apartment, and about 40 percent not sure if I picked the right place.

The apartment is nice, I’ve got a master bedroom and am sharing the 3 bdrm with one other guy. He’s in med school and about 25 years old. Seems like a nice guy. I’ve got a pretty good view of some hills out my window and there is a communal balcony that is nice to sit on.

The forty percent is because I think I’m pretty far from everything. When I say pretty far, I am not speaking from experience since I haven’t really left the apartment since I arrived, I am mostly just speaking from what I’ve been told. Once I post this entry I’m going to head out and get some supplies, so I’ll find out for myself how difficult it is to move around here.

Oh, and happy birthday to me. :)

I’ve been in KL now for two nights, having left Brunei for greener pastures. I’m glad that I went to Brunei but only for the reason that I went. At least now I have a mental image of the country and can visualize it if it is brought up in a conversation.

So now the tough problem is where to go to next. I was nearly positive that I would be going to JB on the 25^th, but now I’m not so sure. After talking to a friend here, he suggested that I’d enjoy Langkawi better. He told me it’s a beach community and is cheaper to live there than JB. He added that JB doesn’t really have anything to do.

Now I’m stuck between the two, about seventy-five percent sure that I will go to JB and twenty-five percent on Langkawi. I keep going to Airbnb.com to look at the long term rentals to each and, at least on airbnb, JB seems better. I just haven’t been able to ‘pull the trigger’ and actually commit to renting a place there.

Yesterday I spent my day walking around the downtown part of Bandar Seri Begawan. It’s a small area that is maybe twenty square blocks filled with some restaurants, government buildings, and shops. The downtown area is next to a river and on the other side of the river is a very large area of river houses, houses on stilts.

River taxis hanging under a bridge. Bandar Seri Begawan, Brunei

House on the river village, Bandar Seri Begawan, Brunei

After wandering around for a little while I decided that I wanted to walk along the river. As I was making my way along the river walk, I hear, “Yoo-hoo.” I mean who says that? Turns out it was a boat taxi driver, and he didn’t stop at “Yoo-hoo” either. He actually said enough stupid things that got me laughing. Is normal job was to taxi people from the bank of the downtown area to the river village on the other side and back. As you can imagine, he also just happens to give tourist tours of the area. The thing was, was that I was getting bored and the thought of riding in a boat for about an hour sounded like fun, so I decided to do it.

The Sultan of Brunei's front gate. Bandar Seri Begawan, Brunei — The Sultan of Brunei’s front gate. Bandar Seri Begawan, Brunei

There wasn’t really much to tell about the boat tour except that it was nice to be on the water. The scenery really wasn’t that great and although I took a lot of photos, I don’t think any really turned out.

This morning I hired a driver to give me a tour of the rest of the area. I wasn’t sure what else there was to see but since I’m only here for three days I felt that I should see as much as possible. I left for the tour at 10.

Storks and house on the river bank, Bandar Seri Begawan, Brunei

Finally, some culture. Bandar Seri Begawan, Brunei

Man walking through mosque. Bandar Seri Begawan, Brunei

Another mosque, Bandar Seri Begawan, Brunei

Most of the tour really wasn’t that great. The driver took me downtown to show me all the things that I’d done yesterday. I can’t blame him but earlier I mentioned that I had been downtown all day, so he knew that I had been there. It ended up him just driving through downtown and not stopping anywhere. The next stop was a very large mosque and then on to the sultans palace (which you can only see the driveway). After taking photos he took me to a botanical garden. I enjoyed this stop the most. It had all different plants from around the world, cactus from Mexico and the US, trees from Australia, and many more. There was even a very small zoo there as well. The zoo had ostriches, peacocks, indigenous deer, some goats, and another bird that I don’t know what it was.

After the botanical gardens, we headed to another mosque and then he tried to show me the mall. I have no desire to see a mall and told him to skip it. Then he took me back to the hotel.

I’ve been in Bandar Seri Begawan, Brunei for the last two nights. First arriving on a ferry from KK on Wednesday. I didn’t get any sleep the night before I left so I spent the whole ferry ride snoozing away. The ride to get here was uneventful and don’t know if I should include anything of the experience in this entry.

My impression of Brunei so far is mixed. It’s clean, and there is a strong sense of order everywhere you go. Which, I might add is kind of nice…at first. Not long after getting here I started to notice many things that raised an eyebrow. The first being that tobacco is illegal, well not exactly illegal, but the way it was explained to me was that I should hide my cigarette if I saw a policeman. You can’t buy cigarettes here, but you can smoke if you aren’t visible in public—I think that’s how it is, but honestly I can’t get a straight answer, some say it’s illegal, some say it is okay to smoke in certain areas.

Alcohol is illegal. Not really that big of deal to me. I can take or leave alcohol and since Brunei is a Muslim country I would expect them to be strict in regards to alcohol.

Littering is illegal. You can kind of expect that of most countries, but here you can get a fine of over 1000 Brunei Dollars, about $800. That’s a pretty steep fine when you think about it.

I was talking to some of the smokers around the hotel and they told me that they don’t have any fun here, that they need to go to Malaysia if they want to enjoy themselves. I’ve been here for about a day and a half and I’m already feeling this too.

I left KK on Monday to go to Sandakan. I was interested in seeing the orangutan conservation area. It’s been on The Discovery Channel before and it supposedly is a pretty big deal. I had a choice of either going by myself or taking a tour that would be three nights. The tour included much more than just the orangutans, but it was also kind of expensive, so I decided to just do it by myself. Big Mistake. Yeah, the orangutans were cool, but the whole thing lasted maybe an hour and a half. The park was laid out in such a way that it was more of a zoo than being a part of the experience. It was still cool to see, but to make a 7-hour trip to see it was probably not the best idea.

Right across the street from the orangutan park there was a Sun Bear Conservation Park. Sun bears look a lot like black bears, but maybe a bit smaller. I think I heard someone say that it is the smallest bear, but I’m not positive. The main building is very nice and after you pay your $10 you start walking up some stairs, maybe 50 or so, and you get to a deck/viewing platform. Below the deck there were about 6 bears. After I took a bunch of photos I went to go further into the park to maybe get a view of other bears… Turns out, that was it. The bears were cute and I’m glad I went, but I think the experience kind of summed up how I’ve felt about Borneo since I’ve been here. It’s kind of a tourist trap.

The second tour that I took was to go to the national park that supposedly was great… When I did the tour it was just okay, nothing special. But, I went with a friend that I met in Penang about two months ago. She lives in Singapore and decided to come visit me for the weekend. So yeah, the tour wasn’t very good, but I really enjoyed hanging out with Nicole.

The first stop in our two-hour ride was to a vantage point overlooking the Kinabalu Mountain. Nice view, but the opportunity to stretch my legs was maybe even better. Got some good photos of scenery and of Nicole.

Our next stop was to a botanical garden… meh. Kind of interesting but it was something that I think I could have skipped without much of a regret. Still it was okay.

Then we headed to Poring Hot Springs and what I really wanted to do, a canopy walk. Canopy walks are basically suspended rope bridges high in the trees. Unfortunately, we went directly from lunch to the hot springs and I didn’t have my camera. I didn’t know that we weren’t getting back into the van so the photos were taken by Nicole or me using her iPhone 6. Still pretty good photos.

The canopy walk was short, too short, but still fun. I loved being up high and maybe even more fun was watching Nicole trying to walk on the bridge… I’m still smiling just thinking about it.

My name is Ken

Category Archives: Travel

For better or worse, I’m here.

I still don’t know where to go

Touring Brunei

First Thoughts on Brunei

Orangutans and Sun Bears

A Couple of Tours