Tranquil in Temburong

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Today was a lovely day all in all, we walked down to the waterfront after breakfast and got a water taxi to Temburong district, the other chunk of Brunei that's separated by Sarawak and largely untouched rainforest.

The 45 min journey along the rivers and Bay of Brunei cost just B$6 each. Mostly the views were of the mangroves. The boat was a covered one this time and held about 16 people, and it moved pretty fast!

The town in Temburong where the boat stops is Bangar. We expected to spend about half an hour or so there, but we were lucky to meet a local guy not long after arriving and got talking......

Patrick took us back to his home, right in the jungle, a beautiful house. We spent a good few hours with him and learned heaps about Brunei; he stopped at the local market on the way to his house and bought us some local treats to try, a kind of fig paste wrapped in banana leaves, tasty. Later he took us to the local high school to meet his Australian wife, Alison, who teaches there, plus another Australian and Canadian teacher. We got talking some more, particularly about job opportunities here, so you just never know! I doubt I'll have work in Christchurch for a while yet.

Patrick dropped us off back near the jetty afterwards and we got the boat back to BSB and made our way to the hotel via a clock shop where we'd seen a clock with arabic numbers on it - this is one of the things on my "must get" list!!! But we couldn't get a low enough price so alas this one will just have to wait.

Later we decided to get the bus to Gadong to eat some of that delicious arabic food we'd seen the other day. This time we got the bus outside the hotel instead of walking to the station!

Mac enjoyed his schwarma and the falafel wasn't bad at all - a quick whizz round the market stalls and we went to the bus stop to go back to the hotel. A while later we realised we'd seen no buses in either direction, then the bus we'd caught going up there appeared and stopped, but all in darkness. We were told that the buses had finished! It was only 7.15 p.m. So we went to the hotel reception just by the stop and the guy there rang a taxi for us, he was extremely helpful. The taxi cost B$10, lucky for us as we just had B$10.70 left in local currency.

So all in all a pretty good day, we've really enjoyed Brunei and are glad we stayed for longer than we first thought we might. I'ddefinitely recommend visiting here if in the area. We've bought bus tickets for tomorrow too, we leave at lunchtime for Miri in Sarawak, so next update will be from Malaysia. The only photos I took today were of the hotel room we're in - I'd also recommend this as a good place to stay too.

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