Blogs from Bandar Seri Begawan, Brunei, Asia
March 17th 2012
Brunei is located on the northwest coast of Borneo in south east Asia. On the way over to New Zealamd this was a good chance to stop over and experience the country with my Aunth and Uncle who live there. The flight time from England to Brunei is around 18hours, with a re-fueling stop in Dubai. I arrived remarkably wide awake and even if I wasnt the heat once the doors openned would soon shake me to life. The highest on record was 40°C and at the time of me typing this blog its 31°C. I met my uncle at the airport and we drove a little way up the road to visit a mosque right in the heart of the busy streets, named after the Sultan Omar Ali Saifuddin, this mosque is beautiful and is ... read more
Brunei - Bandar Seri Begawan - An oil rich nation but a tale of two halves.
Published: January 7th 2012Asia » Brunei » Bandar Seri Begawan
December 12th 2011
Brunei –Bandar Seri Begawan - An oil rich nation but a tale of two halves. Mt Kinabalu completed and fourteen hours later I'm on a ferry to Brunei along with a very achy body. I don't know what it is about the ferries in Malaysia but they seem to run them like cold storage units and it's simply so uncomfortable. Ok enough of my moaning, I'm grumpy when I'm tired so in all honesty it probably wasn't that bad. Anyway after a quick ferry change on an island mid-way I was on yet another bloody freezing ferry for the last leg of the journey. It was all pretty plain sailing and easy which was a welcome relief because I was exhausted and didn't want a stressful day. After hopping on the local bus I made my ... read more
October 13th 2011
We are so close. So why not? I think that would just about sum up why most people visit Brunei Darussalam. I can’t imagine too many jetting in from faraway places just to have a holiday here. Think of Liechtenstein, Luxembourg and other small nations and the same reason will arise. The difference with the aforementioned countries is that they allowed me an easy entry to their countries. Not Brunei though. Australian’s have to pre-arrange a visa for tourism! Germans don’t. French don’t. Not fair I say. What did we ever do to the people of Brunei? Anyway, $5 and 20 minutes later they allowed me to enter because I had a ticket booked to exit in 3 days time and that seemed to make them happy. We only spent 3 days and naturally, you could ... read more
October 13th 2011
Hi everyone, I’m trying to catch up with my post, because I’m a little late! Ok so last time, I had my legs in pieces after climbing the mount Kinabalu. I left the day after I was at the summit, you should have seen me trying to walk; that was really funny! But anyway, I took the direction of Sandakan, which used to be Sabah’s capital from 1883 to 1946. Sandakan ceased to exist after the WW2 (A mix between Allied bombing and the Japanese burning the city in June 1945). Now Sandakan is a quiet town with a lovely sea front and a few places to visit inside the town, but a lot of activities to do on a day trip. First I visited Sepilok, this is the Orang-utan sanctuary. This sanctuary tries the rehabilitation ... read more
Wednesday 5th October – 1st day in Brunei
Published: October 8th 2011Asia » Brunei » Bandar Seri Begawan
October 5th 2011
So this morning Steve and Sarah went to the airport to sort out a rental car at the airport. They were gone for a while then returned at about 10am (And yes, I was up by that time... Nicole wasn't) before having to return yet again because the Steve didn't have my credit card to pay the deposit! We had the car sorted and home by about 10.45am. We spent the rest of the morning lazying around 'home' because we had no plans. In Brunei the workers go home for lunch so we met Simon at the local mall to have chicken and rice for lunch. We were definitely feeling the stares at the mall because we were the only white people and we were dressed very differently to others. After lunch Sarah and Simon took ... read more
September 27th 2011
I crawl out of bed a little before seven. Between the late finish, the snoring and the constant flow of people in and out of the dorm I'm not sure how much I slept. Netta is already awake, there's only one other girl in female dorm and she woke Netta up when she left an hour ago. I have no sympathy. Breakfast and pack bags. We're a little late getting downstairs and the drive is worried we wont get seats on the bus. It's still there when we get there and there's four other passengers. We need our passports to get tickets and the process takes 5 minutes. Getting on the bus the driver needs to check all our details again. The bus is parked next to the little wooden hut we bought our tickets from. ... read more
September 15th 2011
After spending monday night in Miri I got up early and took a local bus to the express bus station where I hopped on a minibus bound for Bandar Seri Begawan, the capital of Brunei. I was pretty happy at the border when they gave me a single entry visa for B$20, because I was expecting to pay B$30 for a multiple entry. We finally arrived at Bandar Seri Begawan at midday and shortly after I had checked into my 4 bed dorm room at the youth hostel for $8 a night. I was a bit worried that they wouldn't let me stay after they had asked my age, but everthing was cool. The room also had a/c and for the 2 nights I stayed there I had the room to myself. After having lunch I ... read more
July 15th 2011
There are not many people who can say they share their birthday with the Sultan of Brunei but some special people do and that was me! They must have known I was coming as the streets were lined with flags and the day had been made a public holiday so everyone was enjoying themselves walking the streets and eating out at the local food markets. So what better than to join in the fun and mingle with the locals. The stop over was a welcome breather between a fifteen hour flight and a further seven hours before arriving back in Brisbane and starting back at work the following day. We were able to find a hotel very central to the city centre and managed to crash for a couple of hours and enjoy a few hours ... read more
The sultans birthday party, red light bulbs, a few snakes and a whole lot of bugs!
Published: July 15th 2011Asia » Brunei » Bandar Seri Begawan
July 14th 2011
Hello from Brunei! This is in fact our second visit in 2 weeks but as the Sultan is coming out to play tomorrow as its his birthday and we were so close we figured it would be a shame to miss the celebrations. So we’ve bought him a cake and are heading out into the crowds tomorrow to see if he will blow out the candles! I like Brunei. Yes it may not be the craziest place I have ever been, but there is something about the city centre I quite like. It has some amazingly beautiful mosques, some great sunsets, the drivers stop and let you cross the road just because they can, the people are lovely and it has ginger beer, waffles, beans on toast and masala dosas all in one street (anything that ... read more
June 30th 2011
In the middle of Malaysian Borneo, sandwiched between Sabah and Sarawak is the small, oil-rich nation of Brunei Darussalam. Being that we were so close, we just couldn't pass up the opportunity to check out its riches for ourselves (not to mention another stamp in the passport and a new country to add to the list). We took the 3-hour ferry from Kota Kinabalu to the island of Labuan where we transferred to another ferry which took an additional hour and a half to reach Brunei. We can't say that it was the most comfortable ferry as we were breathing diesel fumes the whole way and the en-route entertainment consisted of cheezy karaoke music or gory films. Brunei is kind of a quirky place but outside of a few extravagant sites it's actually quite ordinary. We ... read more
