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Published: March 8th 2010
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“What nationality are you, sir?” I was asked by a smiling middle-aged lady, well before I could reach Immigration counters after landing at the Brunei Airport.
Being a dual national it took me a few moments to blurt out the right nationality matching my passport. I told her that I need a visa on arrival. It turned out she was an immigration supervisor. She took me to an immigration counter to the side as instructed the officer manning it to assist me. She dropped in twice during the whole three minutes that it took in visa issuance to apologize for the held-up and murmuring something the effect that transport is waiting for me in front.
The penny dropped once I was out of the arrival hall. There was signage welcoming guests attending some ATF Conference being held in Brunei, with young officious-looking people in colourful shirts registering the delegates. When approached by a bunch, I told them that I was not a delegate but won’t mind if they could tell me where I could catch a bus to the city (Bandar Seri Begawan). My question confused them as a couple said that I could catch a bus from
in the front of the departures, another said that there is no bus to the city and I must catch a taxi. It seemed locals don’t use public transport at all; every adult owns a car, if not more.
I went upstairs to the departures but it turned out that a purple bus that comes to the airport is not allowed to pick passengers. It only drops them. Reluctantly, I had to spend 25 Brunei dollars on taxi for a 15 minute ride. While on taxi I took the chance to glace at my passport; my (special) visa showed me I was a delegate and an official guest.
Bandar Seri Begawan or BSB is a tiny city. On the evening of my arrival, I was able to see and photograph (twice over, day shots and night shots) the magnificent Sultan Omar Ali Saifuddin Mosque, which was only a block away from my hotel. In between I was lured in for a river safari by a persuasive water-taxi driver. From its two sides the mosque is surrounded by an artificial lake, which has a ceremonial royal boat (a concrete and marble structure) to boot. The building does not look
unlike sub continental mosques of 17th to 19th century if you ignore its while marble which gives it a Taj-Mahal-esque appearance.
An hour or so long river cruise took me to the famous and historical (it is said it first appeared in the 13th century) Kampung Air (water village). It is a township of about 30000 people who build their houses on stilts in the Brunei River. Now, many of the bamboo stilts have been replaced by concrete pillars. The Kampung now houses schools, hospitals and even fire brigade stations. It has running water and electricity but the traditional structure of houses has not changed. I noticed that hundreds of cars parked along a side of the river. My taxi-driver told me that these cars belonged to the kampung-dwellers. They catch a river-taxi ashore or walk across over many foot bridges and then drive to work. With the oil wealth running the country, cars, mostly luxurious ones, are in no shortage.
The boat-driver next took me to a mangrove swamp well out of the city, where one could see colonies of proboscis monkeys atop trees. This species are only found on the island of Borneo and their long
protruding noses and round tummies make them different.
I used the next day to visit another wonderful mosque called Jame'asr Hassanil Bolkiah Mosque. It was larger and newer than the other mosque, perhaps erected to remind the mortals of the wealth of the country, or more accurately the country’s Sultan. It seems no expense was spared in building this ostentatious ornamental mosque. I wonder if ever got filled in to its capacity of hundreds of thousands.
I also glanced through a couple of museum, more to evade the tropical heat than out of interest.
Within BSB one rarely sees a local as the country is run by expatriate workers, mostly Indonesian, Malaysian and Pilipino. These foreign workers has bestowed some colour and diversity to otherwise a drab city. Besides a variety of restaurants, one can notice from slim Tamils to bearded Pathans to westerners.
It is not a bad country to spend a day or two, not more.
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