From Kota Kinabalu to Brunei

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DAY 11

Wow! My muscles have never felt like this before! Every part of my body aches, but my thighs and calf muscles are screaming and neither Stuart or I can walk very well. We look like a couple of old people. Oh hang on! We are a couple of old people!

Today we are leaving Kota Kinabalu and Malaysia to go to Brunei. So we have a nice breakfast of left over cornflakes and do our best to walk with our backpacks along the seafront to the bus station. I am sure that the walk will help to loosen everything up.

It seems like a very long walk to the bus station, but is probably only a mile and it is very hot this morning. So when we finally arrive we are suitably sweaty. We find the bus OK - it’s must be 40 years old and is very basic, but it only costs us 1 ringit (that’s about 20p) each to get to the airport. Well we are backpackers aren’t we! Or are we just too tight to get a taxi!

Anyway, we arrive in good time for our flight, check in and look forward to Brunei. The flight is so short that as soon as the aircraft is airbourne we appear to be coming back down again. As we get into the terminal building there are lots of warning signs posted! Death to drug traffickers! No alcohol! It makes me feel very nervous! But the airport is beautiful and quiet and we get a taxi to the hotel as there are no buses or public transport.

We check into our hotel, The Palm Garden, a fairly new, bog standard hotel. Not much character but the rooms and the staff are very nice. We decide to visit the night market so we start to walk. Now it appears that everyone in Brunei owns a car, and it appears that everyone is out driving tonight! The roads are chocca block and as far as I can see the poor pedestrian has no chance. Crossing the road is certainly risky and pavements are non existent! But eventually we make it to the Night market just as it decides to rain - well pour actually! Note for shopping list : UMBRELLA!

The night market is just a food market. Lots of stalls cooking and selling food. It is like a giant take-away! We choose some really yummy things to eat as we walk along - the rain isn’t stopping so we have to make a run for it to the huge shopping centre where we hope we can find a proper restaurant and an umbrella!

Don’t really get Brunei yet. It’s just a modern, concrete city filled to the brim with 4 x 4’s! Maybe it will be better tomorrow!

DAY 12 (Friday 29th)

Breakfast is included at our hotel so we pop off to the cafe. Two choices were on offer :- Fettucine , chicken nuggets and hash brown or a bowl of noodles in a thick brown gravy served with hard boiled egg and toast. Sounds delicious? It is definitely the worst food I have ever had!

So we catch the hotel shuttle into the city centre. It is very modern, and totally soul less. It just doesn’t feel right. We can’t see the Mosques from the inside today as they are closed to non-muslims so we just admire them from the outside. Then we take a small boat out into the Brunei river for a tour. It is really fantastic! We visit the stilt villages built around the edges of he river, see the royal palaces, and then visit the mangrove swamps where we see Proboscis monkeys, a fish eagle and a huge monitor lizard.

After wandering aimlessly around for quite a while, we decide to find the bus station and get back to the hotel. Stuart is really burnt today and his face is so red. He forgot to put on his sun protection this morning - I don’t think that he will be doing that again. We are virtually on the Equator here and the sun is extremely strong!

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