Brunei

After a terrible nights sleep in Lawas (it turned out that the room we had hastily chosen the night before had a broken air-conditioner, sleeping with the window open resulted in Erin being eaten alive by mosquitos), we arose early to catch a boat to Brunei. Our guidebook, ferry timetables and the internet all assured us that at 7:30am a boat departs Lawas for Brunei. However, when we finally located the tiny wharf on the outskirts of town - no ferry was to be found. Asking around we found that there was a boat at 9:30am to Limbang, from which there are regular services to Brunei. Our guidebook assured as that the trip should only take 30 minutes, so we weren't feeling too put off. However by the time we finally arrived in Limbang at 1pm our mood was deteriorating.

Unfortunately things didn't improve, we'll spare the finer details, but suffice to say there were no more boats for the day and the bus wasn't leaving until well into the evening. We were finally forced to pay for a hotel shuttle bus to the border. We were stamped out of Malaysia, our Brunei visas were carefully examined and then we were questioned to ensure we had no alcohol before being ushered into Brunei.

Brunei is by far the smallest country occupying the island of Borneo. It was supposed to join the Malay union when Malaysia was formed, but dropped out at the last minute when oil was discovered (some say it was heavily encourage by Shell). As a result of this oil, Brunei is also by far the richest country in the region. The Sultan of Brunei is known for once being the richest man in the world, however his brother (the former finance minister) squandered vast sums of the royal families wealth. Although the Sultan still owns a Boeing 747 with gold plated furniture he has now slid to fourth place on the world rich list (or thereabouts). As a result of the countries oil wealth all Bruneians enjoy free education and health care, along with no income or personal tax.

A long standing curiosity about this strange blip on the map prompted its inclusion on our itinerary. Few visitors must arrive overland, as the consulate in Canberra were reluctant to issue us a visa as we were not arriving by air (and we can see know why you would want to fly!), but they finally gave our passports back complete with visas.

Having crossed the border we hopped on a public bus and made it the rest of the way to Brunei's capital, Bandar Seri Begawan (most commonly referred to simply as Bandar, can't imagine why!). We'd opted for a slightly smarter hotel as a respite from sleeping on longhouse floors. When we arrived we were informed that we had been upgraded to a deluxe room as all the standard rooms were full. This was rather strange as we saw only a handful of other guests during our stay and the hotel was six storeys high, we suspect the top five floors are simply not used. Due to our rather late arrival we did little more than find some dinner and call home before retiring to the air-conditioned comfort of our room for the evening.

The next day we set out to visit Bandar's biggest attractions, first stop: Sultan Omar Ali Saifuddin Mosque. The mosque is the tallest building in Bandar, and apparently this remains so as the strict Islamic government prohibits anyone from erecting a taller building. No expense was spared with its construction, gold leaf adorns not just the outside of the dome but many of the surfaces inside. The marble used in its construction was imported from Italy, granite from China, carpets from Turkey and the inside of the dome features a three million piece mosaic. We circumnavigated the outside (which features a moat complete with replica royal barge) before venturing inside. We had dressed conservatively, but were given a black gown each anyway. Somehow the mosque looked smaller inside, but the attention to detail was impressive nonetheless. Surprising things included an escalator to the upper level and safes everywhere for the Qurans. We asked to climb the minaret as the view is apparently very good, however we were informed that we needed prior written consent (something we'd mysteriously failed to obtain).

Sultan Omar Ali Saifuddin Mosque

From the mosque we headed for the waterfront where we negotiated with the boatmen for a tour of Kampung Ayer (the Water Village). Roughly 25,000 people live in houses built on stilts in the bay off the coast of Bandar. The residents of Kampung Ayer have all the luxuries of Brunei's land dwellers, the village has a number of schools, a hospital, police and fire stations and a mosque, all on stilts. The boatman took us to his part of the village and showed us around his house, which we were surprised to find was not only roomier, but better appointed than our own!

The boatman's rather luxurious stilt house.

On our second day in Brunei we were a little bemused to find that we had covered Bandar's main attractions the previous day. Unless we wanted to hire a car or head for the lesser developed Temburong district, neither of which we had the time to do, we were running short of entertainment. So we hopped on a bus out into the suburbs to the district of Gadong. As the bus wound though the backstreets of the suburbs we saw many beautiful houses on large well treed blocks, a far cry from the outskirts of the Malaysian cities we had seen so far. In Gadong we headed for 'The Mall,' a huge shopping complex that could have been anywhere in the world (so long as you didn't want to buy any grog).

We spent the afternoon relaxing by the hotel pool (as modestly as possible!) and planning the following day's escape from transport deficient Brunei.