This has been our home for the past six years and has been great for us as a jumping off point to visit other countries during school holidays. Oil-rich, Brunei has not had to develop and maintain a tourist industry, as its neighbours have learnt to. Other than a couple of spectacular mosques, an ordinary museum and a well-kept game park where all the rides are free, Brunei has little to recommend it for a holiday.
We travelled overland from Labuan up to Kota Kinabalu when the kids were still quite little. They coped well with a wide variety of transport, including a little train from Beaufort to Tenom, crowded with locals going to the market as it was. Kota Kinabalu itself has little to interest kids; the museum is mildly interesting, but some of the islands offshore have great snorkelling.
We have had rave reviews of friends’ visits to Turtle Island and Sandakan, both to see turtles laying eggs and babies hatching out, and some close up experiences with orang-utans but haven’t got there ourselves yet.
The Mulu caves are awesomely big. The board walks there can be a bit long for little legs. The Niah caves out of Miri are also good value to visit. And we had a pleasant day walk in the Lambir Hills.
Further south we overnighted at Bako National Park – the children were delighted by the wildlife round our cabin. Again, though preschoolers’ legs are a bit small to get the most out of the walks. They really enjoyed the Cultural Village out of Kuching. The were entranced by the many different varieties of dancing we saw and were invited up on stage to help dance. Hands on activities, as we went round to a house representing each of the different peoples of Sarawak, included playing games, musical instruments, seeing different food being prepared and sampling some of it, holding baby chicks and having a go at a Penan blowpipe!
Dancing in a longhouse
KL is a polluted, traffic jammed city, which didn’t appeal to us very much. Like Bali, it boasts Sunway Lagoon, a water park, which we didn’t actually visit, but Roxanne went on a school music trip and thinks it is pretty good.
We did go to Pangkor Island further up the coast which gave us some peaceful beach time – very tame beach with little surf and shallow water, but we did see a wild hornbill pair in a tree hanging over the beach. Langkawi offered a much more tropical variety of beach, and there we enjoyed a trip to the Telaga Tujuh waterfalls and a refreshing swim.
The kids enjoyed the steep funicular railway up to Penang Hill, and seeing batik in all different stages in a factory. They liked the cannons at the old fort and the intensely decorated Khoo Kongsi – a Chinese clan house.
Malacca had an impressive sound and light show on the padang against a backdrop of colonial buildings.
The Cameron highlands provided respite from the heat of the plains, but the road there was windy and steep and caused one sick passenger. The children got some insights into where tea and coffee come from, and liked the strawberry farm, and the chance to sit in front of a real log fire in the evenings at our guest house. Roses at a dollar a dozen were something of a novelty as well. And we had some lovely walks in the cooler weather.
Malaysians in general love kids. You'll make loads of friends. Hotels are less fussy about having any number of people in one room than in some countries, like Indonesia.