Advice on booking a budget Malaysia and Borneo holiday with teenagers.

[user1485786362]

Help looking for advice on booking holiday to Malaysia and Borneo for myself and two teenage daughters. Budget isn’t huge so trying to do it all without spending a lot. Is there a way to book safari/river cruise/wildlife experiences when we get there? Would it be possible to book as we go or am I likely to get ripped off or not able to do anything? Thank you for any advice. Thinking of going end of April/beginning of May

https://www.gov.uk/foreign-travel-advice/indonesia

https://www.gov.uk/foreign-travel-advice/malaysia

We went to Malaysia and Borneo this summer and did it all independently. It was really easy to book everything ourselves - I joined a couple of Facebook groups for ideas, and got the numbers of some tour guides that way. I’m sure you could also just turn up in most towns and find tourist information/signposting to activities. Communication was easy via what’s app, booking hotels was easy via the usual booking sites (we used a mix of booking.com, Airbnb, agoda and trip.com - if I found accommodation I liked the look of I did shop around on the various sites), and travelling around was easy using Grab.
Some things I would book in advance - highlights for us were a home stay near Kuching a week on the Perhentian islands on a turtle conservation project. Both of these may have been difficult to book last minute (but we were travelling in peak summer season). We also took the night train up the east coast of Malaysia, and again that sold out in advance so recommended to book early.

For vaccinations we spoke to our GP and were given the vaccinations that are recommended - tetanus, hepatitis A and typhoid. We were advised we could consider paying privately for japanese encephalitis or rabies vaccines. We didn’t and just took sensible precautions - not touching dogs/cats and using good mosquito protection. I went so far as to buy mosquito nets but these were never used and I would not bother again! We barely got bitten.