The Wanderings of busman7

So a nice rain came in the afternoon to cool things off for my boat trip around town, the water village, supposedly the largest in SE Asia, the Sultan’s Palace with it’s 1000+ rooms & 2000 staff is supposedly the biggest in the world (so says the boat driver) then a trip on the river to see the proboscis monkeys & even a couple monitor lizards as an added bonus.

To sum up my Brunei experience, it was a nice relaxing transition from my 2 month break in Bangkok, back into travel mode & glad I took the time to visit this small prosperous country (due to it’s oil) with it’s friendly people where it’s no problem finding English speakers. Prices while a bit dearer than Thailand are not bank breakers & as is true with the rest of Borneo very few tourists. Actually since I left BSB Sunday morning until now Tuesday afternoon in Pontianak Indonesia, I have seen a total of 2 white faces.

Lonely Planet has turned out not to be all that reliable when it comes to travel plans in Borneo as even though mine was printed in Mar 08 it’s badly out of date. Firstly it tells one to go to Kuala Belait, switch buses then cross the border & on to Miri, When all one has to do is catch the Blue Bus which takes you straight to Miri in about 3 hrs which includes the time spent crossing into Malaysia. LP also states that you need to go to the Indonesian Consulate in Kuching for a visa as it can’t be issued on arrival at the Entikong border crossing which as of Jan 12/10 is no longer true, they also list the old address for the Consulate.

Left BSB at 08:15 Sun. & arrived Kuching Malaysia 04:00 Mon where finding out that I could get visa on arrival at the border & as didn’t seem much of interest in town caught the 11:00 bus for the 9 hr ride to Pontianak, where I lucked out & got a nice room right next to the dock my ship to Jakarta leaves from.

One thing I didn’t notice while in Brunei was the complete lack of motor bikes & scooters, it was only upon crossing the border into Malaysia & seeing one that it became apparent that I hadn’t seen any for awhile.

A 10 minute walk from the Grand Kartika Hotel  http://www.grandkartika.blogspot.com took me to the Pelni agent where I got my ticket to Jakarta for a mere 223,000 Rupiah  about $28.00 CAD for the 36 hr trip taking 2 nights.

Off to find the Equator in the morning a 28 cent city bus trip.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 27th, 2010 at 04:20 and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.