Blogs from Brunei, Asia - page 18

On our way again, and we found ourselves passing through Brunei for a night. Following the strict instuctions of the receptionist come tour guide at the hotel, we made our way down to the riverbank and hailed a water-taxi to drive us around the Kampung Ayer (water village). There are water villages everywhere in Malaysia, but this particular one is deemed clean and interesting enough to be suitable for a tourist's refined palatte. And it certainly was scenic! The sky saw us coming and pulled out all the stops. We buzzed along in our little wooden boat with a sunset good enough to eat on one side, and the double arches of two brilliant rainbows against storm grey skies on the other. We managed to absorb the unique flavours of the Kampung Ayer houses, (think all ... read more

The flight over here was long and boring. We love reading and watching movies, but there is only so much of either we can do, especially when stuck in cattle class. We were met by our Hospitality Club host ,Paul, and went back to his house briefly before going out for dinner. Colin and Paul has beef and chicken skewers - satay - from a street stall. I was full from plane food - not the best food but there was plenty of it. Even at 9pm, it was 27C outside and drizzling. Today we headed into downtown Bandar Seri Begawan (capital of Brunei, population about 100 000 out of 350 000 total in Brunei). We did the touristy things of course to start with. We went to the very good Brunei museum and Malay Technological ... read more

Only reason stated still in Sarawak, as it was not an option on the choice of country, and we had to put Brunei, which is our next port of call. Yesterday, we arrived at Kuching after a long journey against the current up river. Went on the city tour, which didn't impress us much, although obviously it is growing economically, and the public gardens were very impressive with wonderful tropical flowers, most of which we had never seen before. It was extremely hot 32 degress and humid, and we were all glad to get back to the air conditioned ship. We had a lovely concert of Back, Handel and Vivaldi last night. Today, the monsoon rains have arrived, and it is extremely wet everywhere. We are going to have a lazy day today after the exertions ... read more

Some may say we stuffed up by taking the Royal Brunei airlines..... okok it did take 38 hours to get from home to the hostel in London, But we did get to see a very underrated country of Brunei... OK firstly the architecture was fantastic, brunei is a very surprising place hot as, no summer no winter just HOT and Dry or HOT and wet, FUEL don't choke but it was 53Brunei cents (AUD$0.40) per litre, unbelievable, like most countries that are tied in with oil. We arrived at Bandar Seri Begawan (Airport) expecting not to get into the country, but shane covertly slipped past immigration to score some visas (oh yeah!!!!) We took a taxi to Downtown and saw a huge mall where we ate some spicey food. We were constantly stared at and were ... read more

Well Brunei definitely deserves its own blog entry. This country is highly developed and a lot of time and money has gone into making it absolutely stunning. Most people I talked to must have missed the beauty, it reminds me a little of Granada, Nicaragua, it nothing like it but just the feeling of looking around and there's so much to see. I came over here with Catherine and Dawn, a couple of Scottish girls I originally met in Semporna. When we went out for dinner the first night we met a guy who offered to have his driver take us to and from the Empire Hotel the next day, free of charge. It was a lovely day; the hotel was massive, one of the sultan’s brother’s money misusage missions. There will never be enough guests ... read more