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Published: October 24th 2007
What was initially going to be a two day stint in Brunei was axed to a one dayer. The original plan was to spend a day in the capital and then on the second day take a boat trip down the river through the jungles to try and catch a glimpse of some Proboscis Monkeys. Unfortunately the dork at the guesthouse we were staying at in Sabah told us the wrong boat time so we literally missed the boat on the first day. When I say 'we' I mean me, Paul and Steve. Neil had now gone his own separate way to Indonesia....or Thailand....or was it the Philippines, somewhere anyway, hard to say really as he changed his mind every other minute as to where it was exactly he wanted to go.
To get to Brunei you have to take two boats, both believe it or not at different intervals. One to the tax free Malaysian island of Labuan where many Bruneians apparently disembark to get ratassed and get their end away and the other from Labuan to Brunei. The first boat from Sabah takes about 3 hours and its a bit of a nightmare, let's just say if it's
nickname was the vomit express it would not surprise me. Actually I'll build on that, all you could hear for the duration of the trip were people hurling up and the splattering of vomit upon the deck of the boat, shortly followed by men shuffling along with their mops and buckets to wash the grime away. The smell of vomit in the air was really rich and was enough to make one want to wretch in itself. I'm kind of surprise I didn't vomit actually as I have been prone in the past to dabble with a bit of motion sickness myself. Alas that was not the case and I prevailed. Although motion sickness may not entirely be to blame for the vomiting frenzy as on the T.V they were playing a pirated VHS copy of 1997's piece of crap film 'Anaconda'. Subsequently without sound which for those of you that have seen the film you will be able to vouch that the sound is not and never will save this movie, in fact there is nothing that can save this movie, its AWFUL!
The second boat trip wasn't half as bad from Labuan to Brunei and only takes
about an hour. At round about 4pm we got to the capital Bandar Seri Begawan to be welcomed to an unattended youth hostel. There was absolutely no one around, the guide book did say to be patient as there's not always staff about. Be in so our time was limited we decided to go off and explore the city and would come back and try again later. It's not like other places I've been to in Asia where you can just walk around the corner and find another hostel or guesthouse, it seems that Brunei is well accustomed to not having outside visitors. Even when we told Malaysians that we were off to Brunei they would look at us gone out and say something along the lines of 'Brunei?? Why you want to go there? Nothing to do!'. Admittidly the section in the guidebook was a little thin on the ground with ideas of what to do, especially for Bandar Seri Begawan, but still we were here now and it was time to make the most of the time that we had.
First thing to notice about the city is that it's very clean and tidy and extremely quiet
for a capital, there is hardly anyone about, virtually empty! But those we did come across were friendly enough, most showering us with greetings of 'Hello'. Car's even stop to give way for you here which takes some getting used to. As a whole though not a lot to it as almost expected, the mosques are very impressive, especially at sunset. Walking around one we was given the fright of our lives. We was suddenly greeted by a massive 'BOOOOM' as we caked it and lowered ourselves to the floor. Being in an Islamic country stereotypically we thought 'Shit, terrorist attack!'. Why anyone would target Brunei we couldn't think. But within a couple of minutes we learnt that we must have looked like complete mugs. We asked some guy nearby what the big explosion was and he looked at his watch and said '6:19, Ramadan, time to eat!' as he gestured placing imaginary food into his mouth. So the explosion was a signal to the city that they are now allowed to eat, well they could have bloody warned us!
After that shabbaknackle (not even a real word but I like it) we hopped on a bus and took
a short trip to the Sultans palace, well, to the outskirts of the palace anyway. Wasn't to much to see but a huge guarded entrance and a perimeter fence. Most of the grounds internal contents being hidden by trees, garden looked quite nice though, not as nice as my Grandad Ben's garden I might add, just a few 1000 acres bigger maybe! We walked around the perimeter fence for about half an hour and then came across the sultans very own airport, this is when you know that a guys minted, when he has his very own airport, well that and having your own country I guess!
Another thing we took note of in the guide book was that there was a theme park on the outskirts of the city and it was meant to rival that of Disney. We had visions of it being some amazing theme park that lies unknown to the outside world. Well these thoughts were dashed upon arrival as it was cack, it was for babies. The taxi driver that took us and ripped us off asked us instantly upon arrival if we wanted to go back knowing damn well that before we set
out that we would want to go straight back. But we were stubborn and politely told him where to go. We had a walk about the place and pretty much all of the attractions were closed down, the most fearsome ride being 'The Pony Express', that to closed down.
So with the theme park being a big flop we needed to get back into the city without taking a rip off merchant taxi. So we thumbed it back to huge success. After about five minutes of cars going past honking there horns at us and waving at us for being such vanilla faces a young couple in a pickup truck opted to give us a lift to the centre point shopping centre. I don't think the lady was to happy about it though, I can only assume that she thought that we smelt rife when she wound down her window. Although I'll be honest here, I did accidentally fart, I wasn't really concentrating and I was a little tired when I slipped one out silently on the back seat. Bang out of order I'm fully aware of that and if I could take it back I most probably would,
these kind people have done the good deed of helping out some stranded souls and I repay them by guffing in their truck. But I guess these things happen and they can't always be helped!
We spent about an hour or so wondering around the shopping centre, possibly the most populated place in Brunei, got some grub and then it was time to hit the road again. We tried our luck at hitchhiking again and acquired a lift within minutes, what bloody nice people! This time we rode with 3 young Bruneian lads, possibly Bruneian chavs! Who agreed to give us a lift back to our hostel. From our brief conversation with them they didn't appear to be overly impressed with Brunei. 'Why you come to Brunei? Brunei is boring, nothing to do!' one said. We told them we thought it was a nice place though apart from the lack of activities to participate in, they agreed as one of them said 'nice is nice.....but boring'. Which was quite a good philosophy I thought.
After thanking them for the lift and saying our farewells we found ourselves back at the hostel, which was still unoccupied. It was getting
late now and ideas of where to crash for the night were running thin on the ground, but there was one idea. Whilst walking through the city earlier during the day we happened across a trendy little sports stadium. One couldn't help but notice at the time that one of the gates to the stadium was slightly ajar. Well we walked to this said gate and the case remained the same. It was a warm if not muggy night, the stadium was clean, it was quiet, the city was safe, we were on a budget so basically it would equate to a free nights accommodation as we each selected ourselves a nice piece of concrete to snuggle up against.
After roughly an hour I began to nod off, this was short lived when Steve alarmingly blurted out 'SHIT'. As I looked up I could just about make out two men in military uniform entering from the far side of the stadium in a sort of open top truck with a cannon attached to it. This seemed a little over the top if they were coming to get us. Sticking to the shadows like Tenchu stealth assassin's we crept out
of the stadium and ran like the wind all the back to the hostel which now conveniently had someone on reception.
It later occurred to me that the cannon was the instrument used to signal the start of the Ramadan feasting and soldiers probably wouldn't have noticed us where were situated in the stadium anyway. All the same though not a risk worth taking when you consider what the side effects might be like if you was to receive a cannonball to the face.
The hostel was quite up market for a hostel, extremely clean with an absence of shit stains across the walls and the stench of decaying backpacker was also amiss, until our arrival of course. The two guys on reception running the place were a little bit 'cooey'. They kept bursting into our dorm room without knocking to ask us irrelevant questions whilst seemingly trying to kop a butchers of our nips. After a while though I think the novelty wore off for them and they left us alone and as far as I am aware no one got bummed.
The following morning we got up early and caught the vomit express back to
Sabah. Again we was treated to the same pirate VHS copy of shitty Anaconda, it has to be the most played pirate copy of that film in the world. It's been played that much that all the colours on the screen are becoming so distorted that I think the film is actually evolving into another film. We ended up spending less than 24 hours in Brunei but as you can see quite a bit happened in that short time and our little venture here was by no means a waste of time. It's nice to think that I've actually been to the place and seen it for myself, would have been nice to have done the boat trip down the river but these are one of the cons of travelling, not everything can go according to plan.
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Comment from a Brunei snail
Haha.. i am sorry about the Theme Park and the Cannon! Anyway, the cannon did frightened me a few times! the Blue building which you thought is a Mosque is actually a Ministry Building. :) You missed the Empire Country club for a free visit. it really worth 100% of your time. is even before the Themepark. so at the end you didnt see the monkeys??