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Asia » Brunei » Bandar Seri Begawan
May 22nd 2011
Published: May 27th 2011
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Boat over to Brunei

Stopping over at Labuan I took the public boat over to Brunei

After taking the boat to Labuan and spending a couple of hours lounging around the boat terminal during a storm I then took an hour long boat ride to Muara in Brunei, lastly just a short bus trip and I arrived in Brunei's capital.
Finally arriving I found the Youth Hostel, which been the cheapest hostel by far in Brunei was where I was staying. And it really was a Youth Hostel, swimming pool, badminton courts, the lot even delegate corridor's for males and females clearly marked not letting you enter the other, but it was clean and cheap so ok for a few nights.
Taking a walk around the town I watched sunset over the mosque, the colours were magical both those in the sky and the lights on the mosque making sunset special, I even went back the second night to watch it again.
I had my eyebrows threaded for the 1st time ever not really thinking it could go wrong, I should have thought more! She even took the scissors too them, I've never had so few eyebrows! And because they don't take them at the root they are going to grow back quick. Lesson learnt.
This morning I headed for Brunei Museum and was so impressed, they have an amazing collection of information and fossils.I spent two hours wondering around reading about trading routes, influences from China, India, Portugal and Arabia, animal species and the importance of insects, traditional games and weddings and three role of the Sultan in Brunei's history.
After having lunch at the Indian where I feel like I'm becoming a regular I treated myself to a Indonesian body massage, which was amazing.
Early evening I took a long boat over to the water villages, past the palace although you couldn't really see it due to the trees surrounding it and down the river to see probiscous monkeys.They are very active during the day and sleep at night, they eat the fresh leafs and at night go lower down the trees to sleep, but during the day they spend must of their time in the tops of the trees and in the water. After watching the monkeys the driver asked if I would like to drive for a while, directing me in to some trees to what I thought would be more monkeys he took a pee over the edge of the boat then asked if he could kiss me! What happened to been professional while working? I was quite surprised and very quickly said no!
The water village in Brunei is home to around 30000 people and has many schools, medical centres, hospitals, a police station, fire brigade all built on water! Quite amazing to take a look around. There are some wooden board walks but mainly people use their own or the public boat to get around.


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