You Are Now Entering The Kingdom Of Brunei

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Today was a neat day. It all started in the little town of Miri. Things improved steadily from then.

We woke up early to catch the bus along the coast to Brunei. Miri is surprisingly close to the border - it only took about half an hour to get out of Malaysia, but then it took about three hours to drive to Brunei's capital city Bandar Seri Begawan. The drive was very interesting. Dotted along the coast was the occasional oil drill site. We could see them flaring off gas as we drove by on the highway.

When we arrived in the capital, we checked into our hotel, the Brunei Hotel. It was very nice, but by far the most expensive hotel on our entire journey ($100 a night). We then decided to explore a little bit. The first stop was a café for a quick lunch. We each ordered a dish (the same one) and a coffee. After about forty minutes, and after Mike asked many, many times, Elysia's iced coffee finally arrived. Mike's coffee was still being made, apparently. After another 15 or so minutes, Elysia's meal comes. No food or coffee for Mike, though. After more complaints and more time passes, Mike's coffee finally arrives. As it turned out, they had completely forgotten about making Mike's food! Eventually, it arrived. What an ordeal! When we've told this story to people, it's funny because they usually assume that it was the female that didn't get served, but we're happy to report at least that's not true!

We then continued our walk. From afar, we were able to see the famous fishing village, which sits all along the far coast on stilts. The only way to access it is by boat. We didn't have a boat, so we had to make do with this view... for now.

We kept walking until we came to a very huge, glorious and massive Mosque. The Sultan Omar Ali Saifuddien Mosque is on the edge of a fairly large man-made lake, with what appears to be a decorative Chinese junk in the middle of it. Unfortunately, since it was Ramadan, we were not allowed to go inside the gates of the mosque, so we just admired it from the street.

Shortly after we walked past the mosque, it started to rain. This is a rainstorm we will definitely remember for a long time. We, of course, had forgotten our umbrellas at the hotel, but were lucky to have a plastic bag in the backpack. We wrapped up the DSLR in the bag, and hoped for the best. We knew that we were going to get soaked. Mike was wearing his very slippery flip-flops, which made it virtually impossible to get anywhere quickly. We began to head back to the hotel. Out of nowhere, the wind began to pick up. Coincidentally, this was just as we were going past the infamous coffee shop from earlier in the day. Before we knew it, the chairs from the coffee shop were blowing along the sidewalk and almost onto the road. They almost hit Elysia! Lucky for us, we got the whole thing on video, which you can now watch below:

Eventually we made it back to the hotel, literally dripping. It sure is good that we were staying in such a nice place, so we could thoroughly embarrass ourselves as we walked through the lobby! We went upstairs and got changed, and before we knew it, the sun had come back out! It was hot again.

We had arranged to take a boat trip into the mangrove forests for the evening. So, after we got changed from the rain fiasco, we headed down to the canal and met the guy we had arranged it with. We hopped into a boat, driven by the Man of Steel himself, and headed out. Of course, we brought rain gear with us this time! In the boat were the two of us, our English speaking guide, the driver and his son. So it was a nice little group and everyone was really friendly. We passed along the fishing village and past the Sultan's palace. The place is amazingly huge. After about 15 minutes, we turned right and headed into the mangrove forests. We drove for quite a while into what seemed like the complete wilderness, through narrow rivers. All of a sudden, we came out to a rock quarry, where huge landing barges were being loaded up. It was impressive to think how the big ships could have gotten in there. After we passed the quarry, we kept boating along until the sounds of the equipment was lost in the distance. We eventually slowed, and began to start our evenings mission. We were looking out for monkeys, crocodiles, snakes and anything else we could see. Quite early on, we saw a big (like 2 metre long) shedded snake skin in the tree - yuck! Then, we came on to some proboscis monkeys. We also saw macaques and a few monitor lizards. Man, those things get huge!

Unfortunately, we had no luck seeing any snakes. Snakes are a big thing here, so the driver really wanted to find us one. Eventually, we tucked into this tiny little creek in the mangroves (it actually felt more like a ditch). We were completely under the tree umbrella, so we all had to keep a close watch for snakes. They are in the trees, and are poisonous. Actually, the boat drivers father and grandfather both died of snake bites. So, we were a little on edge. It didn't take long until we heard our driver cry out, "Snake, Snake, Snake!!!" Was there ever a snake. It was a black devil, and it was right above us. Luckily, he was coiled up in the tree and didn't seem to care about us. But it was pretty scary because no one saw him until we were already completely under him. If he dropped down, he would have been in the boat for sure! The worst thing was, of course, that we had to go back past the snake to get out. We used our umbrellas just as we went underneath the snake to create a bit of a shield in case he was a little less friendly on our second encounter. He wasn't so all is good. It's a little unnerving when the local guy is very frightened by snakes (not the driver), makes us even more fearful of them!

We got back out into the open water and the sun was beginning to set. We sat for a while and waited for the sun to go down. The boat driver and his son were both famished, having fasted all day for Ramadan. They had dinner at sunset precisely, and we enjoyed a cup of coffee and tea that our guide had brought along. It was really neat sitting in the boat as it became extremely dark out!

After the sun set, we spent about two hours chasing crocodiles in the dark. We used lights to see their eyes, and then would go towards them. They were always on the shoreline, and would be quite still when you pit-lamped them. A few times we got really close before they swam away. We also saw fire flies for the first time in our life. If you turned off all of the lights, you could see them glow a very faint green in the trees. It was really neat. We actually went up to the tree and were able to catch them.

Eventually, time came to go back to the town. We went back the way we came and soon came to a tree full of monkeys. "I smell monkeys," our driver said. And sure enough he was right. They were sleeping in the trees. That is, they were sleeping until we shone our light on them. They didn't mind though, and probably went back to sleep after we left. It didn't take long till we came to a tree full of big Egrets. We saw the Egrets in the water on our way past the spot in the afternoon. (We also saw some herrons). But now, a few hours after sunset, they were all asleep in the trees!

As we cruised past the palace, we saw a huge lineup of people standing outside. Apparently, today was one of three days per year where the Sultan lets people into the palace. I guess that is what the line was for.

Back in Bandar, or BSB, our guide took us for dinner at a random sushi restaurant that had a Malay buffet. It was good, although it is very strange to go to a sushi restaurant but instead get Malaysian food.

Whoo! What a day. It was long, but very fun. Tomorrow we go to Ulu Temburong National Park!

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Photos

Sultan Omar Ali Saifuddien Mosque in Brunei
The closest we could get to it during Ramadan was sticking our camera through the holes in a fence.

Comments

[D MJ Binkley]

Kingdom of Brunei
We loved our time in Brunei. You've captured a lovely photo of the mosque.