Blogs from Bandar Seri Begawan, Brunei, Asia - page 4

Wednesday We were presented with a wide range of free alcohol @ 10.30am in Cathay Pacific Lounge @ Melbourne Airport. Instead we opted for egg pies, cakes, orange juice and coffee. We were very pleasantly surprised by our hotel in Brunei - our room is very spacious with it's own lounge area, more to Kate's taste than the Customs House in Hobart!! Thursday Gosh it was a tad on the steamy side - hot with bucketfuls of humidity for good measure. After a bountiful and varied breakfast (we avoided the sushi offerings, but we both made a bee-line for the cook-to-order omlettes), we started exploring. The morning's highlight was the Royal Regalia Museum that houses, inter alia, an extensive collection of the Sultan's regalia and presents from overseas dignitaries. After wallking through the humid streets, we ... read more

The journey back to Kota Kinabalu was pretty uneventful. There was 9 of us leaving camp that day and heading there - us, the 3 English girls and American guy we had travelled out with, another British guy that had been part of our group while we were there and another couple. The jungle bus dropped us off at the 'coffee house' it had picked us up from and the driver gave us the name of the bus company he had arranged to pick us up and told us that the bus would be red and would be there at 10 or shortly after. It was 9:30am, we all crossed the road and sat in the shade of a building. All expect the girls that is, who being typical Brits abroad, flung themselves onto the grass ... read more

Brunei is located on the northwest coast of Borneo in south east Asia. On the way over to New Zealamd this was a good chance to stop over and experience the country with my Aunth and Uncle who live there. The flight time from England to Brunei is around 18hours, with a re-fueling stop in Dubai. I arrived remarkably wide awake and even if I wasnt the heat once the doors openned would soon shake me to life. The highest on record was 40°C and at the time of me typing this blog its 31°C. I met my uncle at the airport and we drove a little way up the road to visit a mosque right in the heart of the busy streets, named after the Sultan Omar Ali Saifuddin, this mosque is beautiful and is ... read more

We are so close. So why not? I think that would just about sum up why most people visit Brunei Darussalam. I can’t imagine too many jetting in from faraway places just to have a holiday here. Think of Liechtenstein, Luxembourg and other small nations and the same reason will arise. The difference with the aforementioned countries is that they allowed me an easy entry to their countries. Not Brunei though. Australian’s have to pre-arrange a visa for tourism! Germans don’t. French don’t. Not fair I say. What did we ever do to the people of Brunei? Anyway, $5 and 20 minutes later they allowed me to enter because I had a ticket booked to exit in 3 days time and that seemed to make them happy. We only spent 3 days and naturally, you could ... read more

So this morning Steve and Sarah went to the airport to sort out a rental car at the airport. They were gone for a while then returned at about 10am (And yes, I was up by that time... Nicole wasn't) before having to return yet again because the Steve didn't have my credit card to pay the deposit! We had the car sorted and home by about 10.45am. We spent the rest of the morning lazying around 'home' because we had no plans. In Brunei the workers go home for lunch so we met Simon at the local mall to have chicken and rice for lunch. We were definitely feeling the stares at the mall because we were the only white people and we were dressed very differently to others. After lunch Sarah and Simon took ... read more