In Brunei all that glitters is gold. Nagara Brunei Darassalum (Brunei: the abode of peace) is a welfare state but it has no income tax and is the only country in the world that hasn't held any elections at all since 1962. (Why bother rigging elections?) The GDP per person in Brunei is $US23,600 (2003 estimate. CIA FACTBOOK) It is one of the worlds smallest countries with a welfare system that includes free health care, education and even help from the government with buying a house. The reason for this wealth is that gold that doesn't glitter - black gold:oil. IF VOTING CHANGED ANYTHING... Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah, whose title has passed within the same dynasty since the fifteenth century doesn't bother with things like elections. His father tried it once. 1962 - Legislative ... read more

Whoever is Lord in Malacca has his hand on the throat of Venice. (Duarte Barbosa, 16th century writer and trader). This will be a short blog. I stopped off in Melaka on my way back from the Philippines (see my last blog). I flew back to KL from Manila, then made my way by bus down to Melaka. Melaka is Malaysia's oldest city and was the capital of the Sultanate of Malacca before the Portuguese invasion. It was a major port along the spice route. But in modern Melaka it is the Chinese influence that is the most noticeable. Over the centuries, the Chinese and local Malay cultures in Malacca have mixed, producing a completely unique society, the Baba-Nyona. This culture reached its height around the turn of the 20th century. After my short stay in ... read more

I was walking along a covered walkway between a mass-transit train station and Chinatown in Singapore. A well dressed middle aged man in front of me threw a paper bag towards a bin. The bag bounced off the bin and fell on the floor. He wasn't looking and continued walking straight ahead. The sky didn't fall. He wasn't instantly arrested. No one said anything. Litter is sometimes dropped in Singapore. I saw it happen. I was only in Singapore a few days before catching a flight to Manila in the Philippines. To a casual observer Singapore appears to be a city that works. Its multi-cultural population lives amicably side by side in a modern, clean, high tech metropolis, full of state of the art air conditioned shopping malls. A shopping paradise! I also suspect that it ... read more

"I'm dreaming of a white Christmas, just like the ones I used to know. Where the tree tops glisten and children listen to hear sleigh bells in the snow". White Christmas was blaring out of the PA system at high volume in the Prangin Mall, Panang whilst I was eating a noodle soup. White Christmas was followed by a rendition of: "Rudolf the red nosed reindeer had a very shiny nose And if you ever saw him, you would even say it glows." All these eulogies to the virtues of snow in tropical Malaysia, where they never see snow! I've spent the Christmas period in Penang. The people here definitely celebrate Christmas, along with all the cheesier element I might have thought I had escaped. I left Thailand on the 22nd of December (see my previous ... read more

Yellow is the new black, in Thailand. For the past 10 days I've been surrounded by a sea of yellow shirts. Its the must have fashion statement. Also wherever I've been giant pictures of the King of Thailand have stared down at me. Every public building, bank and shopping mall is decorated with huge images of His Royal Majesty Bhumibol Adulyadej. I even saw the whole side of a high rise building near Chatuchak Park in Bangkok covered with a giant image of the king. The last time I saw a whole high rise covered in an image like that was in Syria many years ago, when the father of the current dictator of Syria was in power. By the way, Syria is well worth visiting - the people are very friendly. So, what's with the ... read more