We were let free

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February 14th

Okay! Wow! We woke with less than half an hour before check-in closed. It was straight up and off running first to check in and then through security. By the time we had fully woken up, we had taken off. The alarm had gone off but cleverly, I had placed it inside a pocket of my bag.

It was quite a long flight before we landed in Brunei. For some reason we thought it would only be a couple of hours or so. Anyway, we landed and realised that we had absolutely ages before our next flight to Manila.

Kindly though, the airline gave us a free tour of the city! The first time I have heard of such kindness by any airline. About ten of us hopped on a bus and headed right into Bandar Seri Bagwan. We were given the biased tour in which we were shown the government buildings, fantastic hospital that if anyone needs treatment it only costs $1 no matter what the treatment, amazing food markets and a water village.

We were let loose for lunch in one of these food markets. There were so many stalls all cooking there own speciality but the place was quite dirty and riddled with flies. We had a curry each that was a bit dodgy but we’ll see how things go, it tasted good though.

We also saw elaborate palaces that were pretty much next to what looked like the slums. But, whether it’s the truth or not, we were told that people here, even in the ‘slums’ have air conditioning and cable television. We smirked to one another and said to ourselves, ‘what? And a helipad on their front lawn?’

It was a very enjoyable couple of hours or so and we know that oil money is everywhere here but we just don’t think that it is literally everywhere.

It was back to the airport and played the waiting game for our next flight, which eventually we did win.

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Photos

wooden houses
... complete with satellite tv