welcome to southeast asia
after a 5:30am wakeup today to catch my flight to brunei, i officially began the southeast asia portion of my trip.
the flight on royal brunei air was ok, but emirates had probably set my expectations a little too high in terms of what to expect on an international flight. i arrived at brunei airport only to find out that my hotel reservation had gotten screwed up, and i had to make another one. after doing some serious bargain hunting, i managed to get a room over at the empire hotel for a great deal.
i'll try to post photos soon when i find a fast internet connection, but first i need to spend some time at the empire exploring the ridiculously nice grounds (not the least of which is an onsite bowling alley and a full-size movie theater) and go for a swim on one of the lagoon beaches. wow... all this at a 5-star luxury hotel for less than the discount rate at most santa monica beach hotels (i'll share the details of how i managed that one in a later post).
i'm off to explore the water village. i know i'm going to miss all this fanciness when i arrive at a budget backpacker resort in bali in three days...
