Borneo

This fully updated fourth edition of Bradt's Borneo remains the essential guide for visiting this island paradise, focusing on Sabah, Sarawak and Brunei. With all the latest practical information, plus new features such as coverage of the gateway cities of Kuala Lumpur and Singapore, and a review of the political situation and conservation issues, Bradt's Borneo offers everything you need.Expert author Tamara Thiessen offers in-depth background chapters on the island's exceptional biodiversity and exotic tribal cultures, from the sultry rainforests and sapphire straits of Sabah to the incredible river journeys of Sarawak. Also included is insider information for touring the island, including regional capitals, rural outposts and national parks. As a world-recognised biodiversity hotspot, Borneo's variety and richness of plant and animal life is almost unparalleled. Just 10ha of Bornean rainforest can support up to 700 tree species -more than the number found across the whole of North America - while an estimated 5,000 of Borneo's flowering plant species and 500 animals are endemics, that is unique to the island, including the Bornean Orangutan, which spends more time on the ground than its purely arboreal Sumatran cousins. Also covered are internationally known locations such as Brunei's Ulu Temburong National Park, the stunning coral reefs of the east and west coasts and, in Sabah, the Danum Valley and Sepilok Orangutan Rehabilitation Centre.From Brunei's mesmerising mosques to the limestone pinnacles of Sarawak's Gunung Mulu National Park, there's plenty to discover in this ideal companion for a successful trip.

'Invaluable.' The Independent

Journalist, travel writer-photographer, self-declared islomaniac Tamara Thiessen lives between the Australian island state of Tasmania and a base in Paris. After a decade as radio and television journalist, in 1997 she gained a Masters Degree in European Journalism in Strasbourg and since then she has worked as a freelance foreign correspondent for newspapers and radio stations around the world including The Age, The Sydney Morning Herald, The South China Morning Post, The Toronto Globe & Mail, the Montreal Gazette, the ABC and Monocle Radio. Malaysia has developed into a kind of halfway home in her migrations between the hemispheres. As globetrotting in work as life, her stories on travel, culture, architecture, design and food and wine appear in leisure and business travel glossies, inflight magazines and custom publications in London, Glasgow, Dubai, Hong Kong, New York, Seoul, Singapore and Sydney. A hotel addict, she spends about half the year on the road, and is a long-time global correspondent for Hotel News Now and Hospitality Design. You can keep in touch with her via her website (www.tamarathiessen.com) or email her at tamara.thiessen@gmail.com.