I'm planning on a visit to East Malasyia this fall and I'd like to know if anyone has stayed at a hotel they really enjoyed. I'm trying to visit both Kota Kinabalu and Kuching, so any help is appreciated. Also, if you've used any of the "adventure" tour guides, I'd love to hear about that, as well.

Here's a recent discussion you might find relevant.

Well, since the referenced thread was started by me, perhaps I can give you an update and some of my thoughts.

Singapore 1st night was an award stay at Hilton (25000 pts), not worth the price despite my like for this hotel. Arrived at about 2 a.m. and woke at 10. No upgrade, free breakfast (not eaten due to late rising) as Hilton Gold.

Took a taxi to Causeway, shlept luggage thru immigration and customs to platform for Causeway Link. Took bus across to Malaysian immigration. Did not get on bus at this end, but found taxi to Puteri Pacific Hotel. Costs S$16 for taxi. S$2 (no change) for bus and RM10 for taxi (ripoff due to not using meter).

Next morning at 0330 took prearranged taxi to Senai (JHB) for RM50 for Air Asia flight to KCH. Should have left at 0430 because one does not need much time in advance to check-in for FD. Travel time to airport is approx. 30 minutes. Since the provincial government has taken over the Pan Pacific, it is not as good a deal as previously. Better to stay at the golf resort near Senai for an early morning departure. Ripoff taxi guys at immigration charge RM50 to airport.

Kuching Hilton: Arrived at around 9a.m. Sent from front desk to conceirge floor. As discussed in other threads, this hotel treats Golds and Diamonds extremely well. Room was not available so was invited to have breakfast in the lounge. Note: the staff manning the desk and the conceirge staff are excellent. Of special note and I usually do not name names were Stella and Jasmine. This hotel is doing something right in terms of employee selection and training.

As I was eating, Stella came up and said that she had a king size non-smoking with river view available. I said that after breakfast, I would pick up the key. Surprise, I was upgraded to a suite. As it turned out, there was an airconditioning problem with the assigned suite and I was later moved to the adjoining suite.

Kuching is an interesting city. It is friendly. Most people speak English fluently so language is not a barrier for most international travelers. I really did very little while there. Spent part of a day searching for a prepaid SIM. Ended up with a DiGi and a prepaid international code. This is not the best provider since calls are often dropped and inputting the codes to call outside Malaysia is a ponderous process. Later discovered that for approximately 4rm per minute more than the two part process one can direct dial internationally. Also DiGi does not work in some areas of Borneo including Batang Ai. Better is Comtel (I believe that is the carrier). Did a little shopping for my wife including buying some unusual stones. Also bought some traveling CDs of Malaysian and international rock and pop.

One day, I decided to take a boat trip to Sibu. The conceirge staff did not have much information about the trip, but since the boat left at 0830 and a return boat left at 1230, I assumed that the trip was 4 hours. Since that was the case, I booked a business class seat on the 1600 MH return to KCH at the MH office in townfiguring that this gave me sufficient time to explore Sibu, have a Chinese lunch and taxi to the airport. The boat trip reminded me of Oregon in the early 1970s. Log decks and saw mills all along the route. An incredible amount of logging just along the river, despite very few clear cuts being evident. Logging must be occuring away from the rivers and then transported to the mills or loading docks. Four hours into the trip, we arrived at a dock. People got off the boat and followed them up to the boarding area. For some reason, I asked if this was Sibu and was told that it was not. I rushed back to the boat and got back on board just as they were casting off. A little after 1400, we finally arrived at the dock in Sibu. I grabbed a taxi and rushed to Sibu airport. So no visit to Sibu. My 1600 departure was delayed until 1830 by thunderstorms and we arrived back at KCH at 1900. Since it looked like I might be stuck in Sibu overnight because of the weather, I called the Hilton and left a message that they should not hold my transfer to Batang Ai should I not show up.

A must do in Kuching. Seafood dinner at Top Spot. Booth #24. Top Spot is not fancy, it does not have uniformed waiters, there are no table cloths, the floor is not travertine marble. It actually is a group of seafood sellers sharing the 6th floor of a parking garage. Walking distance from the Hilton (right out front door, up the hill past the 7-11 to the 1st street, then left, down the hill past the disco and across the street look for the parking structure. Elevator is on the right side of the garage, go to 6th floor, 24 is at the left rear. Pick out your meal, decide how you want it prepared, take a seat at a table, order a beer from the guy next to the booth and wait for a culinary treat at a rock-bottom price. The restaurant is "Halal", the beer, well?

From the previous thread, there was discussion about Batang Ai Hilton. I had originally booked 3 nights there to take advantage of a Visa promotion (stay 2, get 3rd free) but received e-mails that they could not get me to my 1930 departure to Miri on the return. E-mails went back and forth and finally, I decided to bag Batang Ai and just stay at the Kuching Hilton for 4 nights. During my stay, I mentioned the Batang Ai difficulty to the staff and Victoria (reservations manager) discussed the situation with me. She could not understand why they could not drop me at the airport on the return (airport is approx. 20 minutes from hotel just off the road to the resort) and arranged for me to spend my final night at Batang Ai. Note: trip is 4 hours, scenery reminded me of Jalisco or Ranong Province-Thailand. It was a pleasant ride, but as others have stated it my not be worth 8 hours to go to the resort. As a solo traveler, one night was enough.

TBC

1. It's a long ride to get there and get back.
2. The ride is interesting.
3. The roads are fine. They are not nearly impassable as some large city dwellers have previously stated. There are worse roads in Brooklyn.
4. The transfer is handled by contractors, not Hilton staff.
5. There is a rest stop about 2.5 hours from Kuching.
6. The boat ride across the lake is nice, perhaps not so nice if it is raining.
7. It is a great place to go on a honeymoon if one does not want to do anything. There are tours such as a long house one available.
8. The nature walk is about 1.25 hours and one does not normally see any animals. We saw a squirrel upon return to the resort. It can be strenuous as one must go steeply up before going steeply down. The bridge up in the trees was fun and for the adventerous there is a tower to view the lake. The guide is interesting and knowledgeable.
9. The pool is nice.
10. Service as stated by other is spottly. I found it much friendlier than expected from reading posts. The front desk went out of there way to fix my cell phone case when it broke. I actually asked them to throw it away and they got the maintainance guy to glue it back together. Dining room service is better than the Soviet Union in the early 80's.
11. Food IMHO is poor. Selection for lunch and dinner is pretty sparse and preparation could be improved. Healthy meals are really not a choice
12. Breakfast is not as good as most Asian hotels.
13. Rooms are dirt cheap. Not so cheap when one adds in the transfer. Food is comparatively expensive.
14. Rooms are dark. The upstairs bedroom is reached by a treacherous set of stairs. Shallow treads, and steep. Air-conditioning is fine downstairs. It is hot upstairs. "Heat rises in the tropics"-from the front desk. I think I was in an upgraded room, so perhaps some do not have the upstairs bedroom with a downstairs living room
15. One will succumb to boredom pretty quickly. The place is best for couples and groups.
16. With effort, one can get dropped off at the airport on the return. Despite having arranged drop off, the driver didn't think he could, or perhaps did not want to drop 3 of us. Cell phones were necessary to make it happen. The airport is no more than 2-3 minutes off the road.
17. Been there, done that!

Since I was to be nearby, I wanted to add Brunei to my list of place visited.
Information about how to get there is pretty sketchy. Information as illustrated by the trip to Sibu about how long things take is almost non-existent.

Rental car with pick-up in one city and drop off in another would have been the best way. First, it is very difficult to book a car in Borneo on line. There are no Avis, Hertz, Europcar, Budget franchises. Cars are comparatively expensive, in the $60-$100 per day range. If one overcomes these disadvantages, one discovers that one way rental is impossible unless one hires someone to drive the car back to the origination. Additionally one seemingly cannot take a rental car into Brunei or Sabah.

Second choice was by air. Getting to Brunei by air is ponderous and costly. Royal Air Brunei after a flight on Malaysia Airlines seems to be the name of the game from Kuching via Singapore or Kota Kinabalu. MH does not fly to Bandar. SQ does fly from SIN, but it is not cheap.

Third choice is by air to Miri, Labuan, or Kota Kinabalu and by bus, taxi or ferry or combinations of these methods to Brunei.

Never assume anything about Borneo and do not book anything until you have definitive information. Originally I planned on flying to Miri, renting a car to drive to Brunei and back and then fly to KK. So I booked the Miri flight and the KK flight on MH. Fortunately, advance purchase discounted Y is quite cheap and sort-of refundable (80% on a voucher usable only by the booked person on the same class of ticket). The best part is the quite cheap.

Well since one cannot take a rental into Brunei, taxi appeared to be the next best. Malaysian taxiis are fairly cheap (not from Miri to Bandar and back), the third choice was the bus. Taxi and bus are somewhere between 2.5 and 4 hours each way so a day trip was out. Hotels in Brunei are expensive or inconveniently located so I really wanted a day trip. The Miri Marriott was $65++ per night. The hotel is a resort/spa hotel reminiscent in lobby architecture to a number of Marriotts in Asia. Rooms are comfortable. Breakfast is a copious buffet. The pool area is attractive, but the beach is a mess. Sandbags divide the pool area from the beach. They are starting to build a marina directly in front of the pool thus removing what probably was a beautiful beach. Totally destroyed the resort athrmosphere IMO. I only stayed overnight, arriving delayed from KCH and saw nothing of Miri.

Finally, I decided to bag my rm70 MYY-KK flight and fly MMY-LBU and get a stay at the Sheraton Labuan, take the ferry to Brunei and a taxi to Bandar.
From Brunei I booked a flight to KK on Royal Air Brunei. Asiarooms.com came up with $US54 room at the Jubilee hotel with breakfast. The Sheraton was $119++. Labuan is a free port and booze source for Bruneians. The Sheraton Labuan is, well, a Sheraton. I had a nice view of the harbor, the front desk staff are pretty much out of it. They ignore reservations, do not respond well when this is pointed out and are generally unhelpful. It is not necessary to go into the difficulties with these robot-like people. Would I stay there again, probably since it is one of the few games in town.

One high spot of Labuan was seafood at the Yacht Club. Actually an outdoor restaurant with pick your own seafood and preparation like "Top Spot". $.80US beer.

The trip from Labuan to Brunei was by taxi (RM6) to the pier, ferry (1hr. RM40 picked up by bellman) and taxi B$60 to the Jubilee. $B=$S and they are interchangable in Brunei. On the taxi ride, government buildings of interesting architecture were visible as well as single family homes of the residents. It was an interesting contrast. Just past the Sheraton, the taxi took a left and dropped me at the Jubilee. Best thing about the Jubilee was the mini-mart stocked with coke light (B$1) in the hotel, the high speed internet in the internet cafe on the 1st floor, walking distance to the Sheraton for late lunch and the free transfer to the airport. My impression of Brunei is that it is a tribute to the ability to spend money on impressive government buildings.

So, Been There, Done That. Another 2 stamps in the passport. Another airline flown. It cost approximately the same to fly from Bandar to KK (15 minutes) on Royal Air Brunei as KK to BKK on AirAsia (3 hours) and FD was more comfortable.

Between this thread and the one on the link provided by SanDiego1K it covers most things.

I have been to Kota Kinabalu a number of times in the last few years and always stay at the Shangri La Tanjung Aru just outside the City and 10 minutes from the airport. There is another Shangri La (Rasa Ria Resort) about 40 minutes away which although it has a better beach I prefer the Tanjung Aru. It has got a decent Horizon Club lounge now that they have extended it.

While KK City itself has improved considerably over the last few years, it still isn't up to much in itself. However, there are alsorts of interesting things to do throughout Sabah, and being 10 minutes from the airport makes this pretty easy.

There are 5 islands just across the bay from the Tanjung Aru as well that are easily accessible by boat from the Hotel. Mt Kinabalu is one of the main attractions as is Sepilok Orang Utan Sanctuary over at Sandakan which is the largest of it's type in the world. Having said that, they also have 4 or 5 Orangs in the reserve attached to the Shangri La Rasa Ria and you can get much closer to them there than at Sepilok, although you don't get to see the fabulous rain forest like you do at Sepilok.

Enjoy Sabah, it's a great place. ^

just back from KK, and stayed at the Jesselton. By the way, the Meridien has recently opened there.

The Jesselton was very nice, but a bit expensive booking it myself. There are some better deals by booking it through asiarooms.com or others. Then again expensive is relative. It was like $70 with breakfast.

You could get the hyatt for not much more (the asia rooms rate includes breakfast and still is like $15 cheaper than the hyatt site). I was told the hyatt's pool is mini size.

I really didn't spend much time in the rooms. One morning it was an early morning jaunt to kota kinabalu. Another an early morning trip to rafting, and the third it was the air trip to sandakan and the organgatangs and turtles. And at night was either shopping or at dinner. So unless you have more time, aren't planning to take the tours, I'd really suggest you not pay a lot more to stay at a nicer hotel.

The jesselton was very nice, close in and easy to get around from

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showt...=kota+kinabalu

I also visited one of the offshore islands. I think it is named Sipa and do not recommend it as a place to go. Fairly dirty, lots of tours stop here for lunch. There is an island adjacent that appears much nicer. It has a high-end resort. Unless you want lunch included, just take a boat from the piers rather than booking the tours to the offshore islands. Taxi from Hyatt to pier is 6rm. It actually is walking distance.

A recommended restaurant is "Portview" (there are 2). I commented about this in the above thread.

One final thing. Borneo is not third world. Much of it is just as advanced as Europe, Canada, or the U.S.. It is a great place to visit, just as the Canadian west is. You should really enjoy the friendliness of the people, the scenery and, with luck, the animals.

Another website on Sarawak
www.sarawakmice.com

A web-site about Padas River rafting:
http://www.infohub.com/TRAVEL/SIT/sit_pages/13187.html

I tried to book the Padas Trip at the Hyatt tour desk, but the river was running too high to be safe, so instead I went on the other rafting outing which is class I and II. It was fun, especially the opportunity to spend quite a bit of time in the river rather than the raft. Everything needed is supplied and they even transport your clothes to the end. It was tame, but still enjoyable. If you can find a travel agent in town to book, it should be somewhat less than using a hotel tour desk. Cost of the outing including transport in a van, rafting, and lunch was US$46 (booked thru Hyatt). I still want to try the Padas which should be more like the Deschutes in Oregon.

Sarawak boat and plane schedules re: Sibu, links to other Sarawak info.
http://www.kapitro.sarawak.gov.my/ph...sportation.php

Here is another Sarawak information site:
http://www.kapitro.sarawak.gov.my/ph...sportation.php

This site lists most tours out of KK, it is representative of those offered by the Hyatt tour desk. I know nothing about this company so cannot offer a reference. Most companies offer similar.
http://www.sanmicheletravel.com/borneotours/main.htm

And one final thought. There is a Holiday Inn resort near Kuching. I met someone who had stayed there and she commented that it was a long way from anything. Like the Shangra La Rasa Ria, one is pretty much trapped at this resort. It is however, a beach resort and not an in-town business hotel.

Has anyone done this sort of trip recently? We are looking to go to KK/Brunei/Kuching for 10 days in August.

LarryU has done a couple of very extensive reports on both Sarawak and Sabah. They include links and photos. I was last in KK about 9 months ago and stayed at the Rasa Ria and Le Meridien. I believe the Starwood thread has comments about Le Meridien which I consider one of the best Starwood properties in the world. You can search my posts for both the Rasa Ria and Le Meridien. Latest news on Kuching Hilton and Batang Ai are in Larry's reports.

I do not like Batang Ai nor does Larry. Brunei done that and seen that as discussed above.

PM if you have specific questions.