Advertisement
Published: December 14th 2009
Edit Blog Post
Early morning, in Miri, I got up and called for a taxi to the bus station. It was going to be a long day, because according to the lonely planet, I was going to have to change buses 3 or 4 times before I would get to Bandar Seri Begawan (BSB), Brunei's capital and my next port of call. Miri is only 25km from the border with Brunei, and when the taxi driver offered me a good deal to go straight to the border, I said GO: that's at least one change of transport less...
After dropping me at the border, I checked out of Malaysia and I had to walk to the Brunei side. A guy from Malaysia, his name is Keith, drove by and asked if I wanted a ride. OK, I said! Border crossing was the easiest I ever had in Asia. Got my stamp immediately and that was it, no one else around.
Turned out that the walk would have lasted quite long, because after the border crossing there was nothing! I thought there would be buses waiting there, but no way. Luckily, Keith was going were I had to board the next bus, so he
dropped me off at the bus station and when I got out of the car, the bus was ready to go. Cool! Things were going smoothly! The next town would be my final change of buses for a 2-hour ride to BSB. Along the ride, I saw what Brunei is famous for and why the Sultan, the head of state, is so rich: Oil! They're pumping it out of the ground everywhere.
Only 400.000 people live in Brunei, and the country is about twice the size of Luxembourg. The Sultan is well known for his wealth (and showing it off), having the largest palace in the world, an estimated 3.000 to 6.000 cars (!!!) and 7 planes, amongst which a Boeing 747... need I say more... Well, yes, the people of Brunei profit as well: free education and healthcare for everyone and no taxes! Sweet! But you'll have to live a life without alcohol, because it's completely banned in this country.
The Sultan also built a theme park of which admission was free until 2000. Now that it's not free anymore, it's under repair and the rides are closed.
I checked into a hostel in BSB and wandered
around. There's not a lot to do, actually. The most impressive sight is the Omar Ali Saifuddin Mosque. That evening I went back for some photos by night and I ran into Abdul, a friendly local guide. He took me around to another mosque "Jame'asr Hassanil Bolkiah Mosque". This one was even more impressive. I got a peak inside and the mosque is all marble and gold everywhere!
The next day I went to the Royal Regalia Building, a museum devoted to the Sultan. It's quite interesting though, with lots of lavish stuff on display.
In the afternoon I took a boat ride on the river. It took me to "Kampung Ayer" or "Water Village", and I got to meet "Dutch people"... well, not really people from the Netherlands, but these were actually monkeys. Officially called "Proboscis Monkey", they are locally called "Orang Belanda", meaning Dutch People. Why? Well, they have big noses and round bellies, and the Malaysians thought that they looked like Dutch people, after "we" came to Malaysia a long time ago!
The monkey is an endangered species though. It lives only in Borneo, and according to Wikipedia, there's only about 1000 left in the wild.
I think I saw about 20 of them!
The next day, I was heading back to Malaysia (Kota Kinabalu): goodbye to Brunei, it was a short but cool experience!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.046s; Tpl: 0.014s; cc: 8; qc: 27; dbt: 0.0233s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Erik
non-member comment
10 points
Ten points for spelling the Jame'asr Hassanil Bolkiah Mos correct all the time! :-)