Bradt Travel Guide: Borneo: Sabah, Sarawak, Brunei

This fully updated fifth edition of Bradt's Borneo remains the essential guide for visiting this island paradise, focusing on Malaysian Borneo, Sabah and Sarawak, and the sultanate of Brunei. With fully updated practical information, in-depth coverage of flora, fauna, history, ethnology and culture, and a deep journalistic gaze of political and conservation issues, Bradt's Borneo offers everything you need. There is also a revamped end section of must-see sights and places to stay and eat in the vibey gateway cities of Kuala Lumpur and Singapore. Expert author Tamara Thiessen offers thoroughly researched background chapters on the island's exceptional biodiversity and exotic tribal cultures with input from subject experts. She also covers the top island attractions from the sultry rainforests and sapphire straits of Sabah to the incredible river journeys and mountainous regions of Sarawak. Insider information for touring the island includes regional capitals, rural outposts and national parks. As a world-recognised biodiversity hotspot, Borneo's richness of plant and animal life is unparalleled. In just 10ha of Bornean rainforest, up to 700 tree species can be found more than in North America. About 5,000 of Borneo's flowering plant species and 500 animals are endemic, that is, unique to the island. High among them is the wildlife star, the Bornean orangutan, which spends more time on the ground than its arboreal Sumatran cousins. The guidebook also covers Brunei's renowned Ulu Temburong National Park, the stunning coral reefs off the east and west coasts, and the world-famous Danum Valley and Sepilok Orangutan Rehabilitation Centre in Sabah. From Brunei's mesmerising mosques to the best street food in Kota Kinabalu, the limestone pinnacles of Sarawak's Gunung Mulu National Park and Tamara's top river trips Borneo-wide, there is plenty to discover using this guide as an ideal travel companion. AUTHOR: Journalist, travel writer and self-declared islomaniac, Tamara Thiessen lives between Paris and Sydney with regular touchdowns to her island state of Tasmania. After working in print, radio and television in Australia, she won a Rotary International journalism scholarship to France, graduating with a master's degree in European Journalism in 1997. Since then, she has worked as a foreign correspondent for newspapers and radio stations worldwide. She has reported on France and the EU for Forbes.com and CNN.com, Monocle, the Age, the Sydney Morning Herald, the South China Morning Post, the Globe & Mail and the Montreal Gazette. Tamara has also worked for Agence France-Presse, ABC Radio Australia and Radio France International in Paris. Her stories on travel, hotels, culture, adventure, sustainability, design, food and wine appear in travel publications worldwide. The author of several travel guides, Malaysia is Tamara's halfway home while migrating between the hemispheres. 103 colour photos, 28 maps