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Since Brunei is such a rich country I was expecting a lot of marble and red carpets at the border but this is what I got. IMentioned before that I had to wait in KK for 5 days before climbing Mount Kinabalu. So I decided to hop on a boat and go to Brunei for a couple of days. Due to bad connections the boat trip took a bit longer than I expected but it gave me the chance to see a bit of the island Labuan along the way.
The independent Sultanate of Brunei is an Island in Malaysian territory. The Sultan of Brunei used to rule over almost whole Borneo but his power has declined a lot the last centuries.
These days Brunei is just a small but very rich country. The country thanks its wealth largely to its oil reserves. The standard of living is apparently among the highest in the world. A working week is just 3 or 4 days and there are no taxes on labour... sounds good doesn't it.
Brunei is also a Muslim country and they are serious about it. A lot of (beautiful) mosques, street signs in Arabic and strict rules of conduct. The hostel I stayed in had segregated dormitories for men and women. When I was pretending to go into the women dorm the staff
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Mosque and royal boat (or something) warned me that if the police would see me I would get arrested...
More funny Royal Family stuff here. The brother of the Sultan, Prince Jeffrey is a bit of a character. He used to be Finance Minister but was sacked after almost ruining the whole royal capital. There was a lot of rumours about corruption and at a certain point the Sultan was sueing his own brother. It seems their trouble has been mostly resolved but I guess the Sultan still isn't too happy with his brother having a boat called 'tits' ( with 2 smaller boats 'nipple 1 and 2'), keeping in mind that he wants his country to be considered a 'devout Muslim state'.
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According to legend the name 'Brunei' means "this is it!". But for most travellers that have been in Brunei for one day it is more like:"Is this it?!?". I passed 2 days in the capital and close surroundings and I can confirm there is not much going on there. The town looks like a ghost town at times. It is so calm on the streets. Even at the peak of rush hour, traffic is as
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Karin and I in our'descent'Mosque clothes. dense as in an average Belgian village on a Sunday morning.
I met up with Karin, another solo traveller, on the boat and we went on a discovery of town.
One of the major sights is a mosque where they are really proud to have Belgian carpets. There was an escalator to the sultan's praying lounge, a strange sight in the middle of a mosque.
The second sight in town are the stilt villages 'Kampung Ayer', complete with schools and hospitals on stilts. It looks really basic but I was assured that all houses have electricity, running water and... DVD players.
The boat men were really anxious to give us a tour of the place, but we decided to just have a walk through it without really knowing where we went.
Another stop was the 'Royal Regalia museum' which has some exhibits on gifts received by the sultan, history of the country and the sultan and it also has some examples of the 'royal transport' during processions and festivities. I think the sultan has been watching a lot of Batman movies...
Second museum was the 'Brunei museum'. I wanted to go there to have a look at
the 'Islam gallery'. This gallery which displays the personal collection of the Sultan has some of the best pieces of art and craft from the Muslim world. Actually when I visited Morocco 2 years ago I met a guy who told me it was one of his big goals in life to one day visit this museum. It was really nice. Especially the collection of 'illuminated' Korans was really impressive. I really like the Islamic art so it was surely worth the trip out of town. The other galleries were less interesting. The exhibition on 'Oil and Gas in Brunei' was pretty misleading as it completely ignored the fact that the country will run out of oil by 2025.
One other thing I wanted to do, while in Brunei was visiting a theme park. This park that was given to the people of Brunei by the Sultan for his 46 (?) Birthday is supposed to be one of the biggest theme parks in the world. Even if half the population of the capital would turn up on the same day, it would still be deserted.
The problem however is that due to the fact that hardly anyone goes there,
almost all the rides are closed. So I ditched that plan and went for a swim in the pool of our hostel.
Karin and I discovered we had some mutual interests. Karin is also a karateka. And she has been studying Japanese in Japan for a year. I tried to remember some of the Japanese I've recently been studying on the road but I pretty much failed to say anything that made sense (I still haven't finished the 1st chapter of my book).
She also trained karate in Japan and had some pretty amazing and entertaining stories about that. I was really impressed and jealous. Japan has moved up a couple of places on my 'to travel' list.
As you see: not much happening in Brunei but I don't regret going there as I got to see some nice stuff and met cool people... and it's just another stamp in the passport : )
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andy & lena
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Bandar Seri Begawan
We liked the 'Royal Batmobile' ...