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Omar Ali Salfuddin Mosque, Brunei
The mosque with its minarets is the most prominent feature on the Brunei Town skyline. This is not a large town - only about 60,000 people - but it's very clean, with spacious streets and very modern expressways. Looks like a good place to live!Four days after leaving Australia, we came to the little Muslim country of Brunei where we spent the day, as our tour literature said, admiring the lifestyles of the rich and famous. Brunei (rhymes with soon-eye) is a tiny oil-rich Islamic sultanate (its sultan is head of state) on the large island of Borneo. It has one of the highest per capita incomes in the world. (Less than the US, but much higher than most of its SE Asia neighbors.) Its huge reserves of oil and natural gas finance a lavish life style for the Sultan and aristocracy, with enough left over to provide free education and healthcare for all citizens, plus subsidized food and housing. Brunei imports 80% of its food, as said citizens can live quite comfortably as clerks or subsistence farmers without going to all the trouble of farming and cattle raising. For example, beef is imported from a government owned cattle ranch in Australia which is bigger than the country of Brunei itself.
There are no slums. In the capital city of Bandar Seri Begawan (otherwise known as Brunei Town) the residents live mostly in pleasant middle class suburbs mostly indistinguishable from their counterparts in the
Omar Ali Salfuddin Mosque, Brunei
This is a side view of the main entrance to the mosque, showing the large white marble curved stairway leading to the huge doors on the second level. There was an escalator on the other side of the stairway, but it was for the exclusive use of the Sultan and his family. It is kept covered at all other times - much to the indignation of one of our American tourists. He kept insisting that his wife be allowed to use it! US. Their Sultan, Sir Hassanal Bolkia, is thought to be the richest man in the world. He lives in a modern 1,788 room palace that covers 50 acres and cost $400 million to build. (Bill Gates, eat your heart out!)
Unfortunately, we didn’t get to see this palace itself except for a glimpse of the outside, as it’s open to the public only at Ramadan. However we did visit the Royal Regalia Center, an impressive marble edifice that houses a replica of part of the palace, plus many museum-quality mementos of his reign.
We also visited the Omar Ali Saifuddin Mosque, which has more marble and ceramic tile and gold than we’ve ever seen in one building before. Its counterparts that we saw in Istanbul were more impressive because of their antiquity, but this mosque was built in recent years, about 1990 I think, and it is gleamingly clean and beautiful. Unfortunately, we weren’t allowed to take pictures of the interior. But it is certainly one of the loveliest buildings I ever saw anywhere. It has several tall minarets around it, each plated with gold (99.999% pure, the guide assured us) and the whole structure towers over the
Omar Ali Salfuddin Mosque, Brunei
Repeated arches are a common motif of Islamic architecture. They are very effective in these ornate oversize buildings. The white and blue surfaces are made of thousands of ceramic tiles. No representation of a human figure is allowed in a mosque, so flowers and geometric figures are very often used. city. Impressive indeed.
The centerpiece of our tour (courtesy of Virtuoso, thanks to our wonderful Young Travel Agency in Greenville) was lunch at the Empire Hotel and Country Club, which is owned by the Sultan. This was another drop-dead grand edifice with 30-foot ceilings and marble columns, set in a huge tropical estate next to a floodlit Jack Nicklaus-designed championship golf course. There we were served an exotic lunch by waiters in royal servant costumes, and entertained with a local traditional music and dancers, plus a traditional wedding re-enactment including bride, groom and wedding party.
Finally, we visited a the Yayasan Shopping Complex, which looked very much like an upscale US shopping center, with perhaps a bit more marble and spacious plazas. Even some of the stores were the same. Unfortunately Dick and I had to spend most of our time shopping for some warm clothes, getting ready for an unexpectedly cold China trip. The prices were great and I could have spent many more busy happy hours there, but we couldn’t let the ship sail off without us.
We will be at sea a couple of more days, long enough to see a stage show on
Omar Ali Salfuddin Mosque, Brunei
No shoes were allowed in the mosque, so we had to leave ours outside. There are hundreds of little bins for shoe storage on the long walkway leading to the main entrance. As many as 3000 worshippers may congregate in the main sanctuary, which is a huge rotunda with a ceramic-tiled domed ceiling and enormous crystal chandeliers. the ship tonight featuring Tommy Tune. (He was the really tall young man in “Hello Dolly” who courted the boss’s niece.) Then Friday we’ll be in Hong Kong. There we will leave the ship immediately for an overland trip to Beijing to see The Great Wall and Imperial City and other sights, rejoining our Crystal Serenity ship in Singapore. So we’ll be out of touch again for a few days, maybe a week or so. But we’ll be back! -- Mary and Dick
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anonymous
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hi! my name is maddy and i really enjoy your travel journal. i like your adventures and pictures. btw,u no your niece amanda, right? im her daughter. anyway, i like it alot. bye! - maddy