Day trip to Brunei

Hi everyone,

Last night we had our final dinner with the tour group. The sunset walking to the restaurant was magnificent, but unfortunately the service at the restaurant was quite the contrary. Our meals took hours, mine wasn’t very nice, and then they tried to make Mum and I pay for three extra drinks. Alas, we still had a good time. Ned even treated us to him singing some karaoke (he was really good!) and then they got Stacey up on stage because it was her birthday. The poor thing was made to drink beer from a funnel, but then they brought her a cake too. 

Then we headed home to bed. Up at 5am, we met Sue from our tour in reception at 5.20 and the three of us got a taxi together to the airport to head to Brunei. Sue was on a Royal Brunei flight, and we were on the earlier Air Asia flight. 

Why Brunei? Why not! You know us - we love a good “off the beaten path” adventure. The less we know about a place, the more exciting the adventure becomes. We heard Sue saying she was going to Brunei for a few days, and when we realised the flights were cheap we couldn’t resist a sneaky day trip. The flight time is shorter than Melbourne to Adelaide (25 minutes - the seatbelt sign went off and five minutes later they announced we were beginning our descent!) so you can visit in one day and check out the capital pretty easily. 

We have been pleasantly surprised with Air Asia this trip. Both our flights have been on time, and today we even had a whole row to ourselves!

On arrival we purchased our visas, the process was much easier than what was detailed online and they were only $20 each. We did get asked a few times “just one day?” which I think must be a bit of a weird concept to people here. 

We caught the bus into Bandar Seri Begawan, the capital of Brunei Darussalam (the country’s full name - meaning “Brunei, the abode of peace”). After a quick stop at the tourist information centre to get s map and avoid a morning rain shower, we set off on the heritage trail walk. We found out that around 500,000 people live in Brunei and around 80,000 of them reside in Bandar Seri Begawan (BSB). Formerly known as Bandar Brunei, BSB had its name changed by the sultan in 1970 in honour of his father. The sultan’s family have been in power here over the last 600 years, but during this time the country has experienced a civil war and was also under British control for a time. During World War II, Japan occupied Brunei until the Australians liberated Brunei in 1945. In 1984 Brunei gained its independence from the UK, but then joined the commonwealth so still share a close tie with them. 

As we set off on our walk we looked at the waterfront where we could see the sultan’s palace. Supposedly it has 1800 rooms (including around 250 bathrooms - I struggle enough keeping one clean!!) and is the largest palace in the world. Brunei is an extremely wealthy country due to its plentiful oil supply. Thankfully this means the jungle here is relatively untouched, and it also means that everything here is mostly beautiful, clean and well maintained.

As we approached the Sultan Omar Ali Saifuddin Mosque there were heaps of gardeners maintaining the nearby gardens. They were immaculate and lovely. We walked over to and entered the mosque. Built in 1958, it’s named after the current sultan’s father and was built during his reign. It’s BSB’s most famous landmark and is topped with a pure gold dome, and also has a boat out the front commemorating the 1400th anniversary of the Qu’ran. The inside of the mosque was very beautiful, but we had to wear a cloak and a head scarf so we got hot very quickly. 

Once outside, we could hear music. We asked the guard at the mosque what it was, and he said it was practice for the sultan’s birthday next Monday 15th July. We wandered over to the field where it was taking place and were able to sit in a grandstand and watch, listen to and enjoy the performance.  Turns out this is where independence of Brunei was proclaimed on January 1st, 1984. The band were excellent and we really enjoyed the precision with which the military sections of the parade marched. About 1/3 of them were women too which was awesome. They even played “happy birthday” and gave three cheers! I was proud of myself too as I had correctly guessed that the “73” signs all over the place were about the sultan turning 73. 

After seeing the monument for the name change of the city, we then headed to the Brunei History Centre. Here we read about documents pertaining to Brunei ceding part of its territory to Sarawak, the other state of Malaysia on Borneo in return for providing military support. For this reason, Brunei is actually split into two parts and is like a Sarawak sandwich with a bit of Malaysia wedged in between!

We also saw a stone tablet replica detailing the history of the kings here, as well as reading about how Brunei was a strategic stopping point for many making journeys across the world to China and other places nearby, and about Brunei’s constitution. 

Next we headed to the Royal Regalia Museum, which like everything else in Brunei was free to visit. Because the country is so rich, all the tourist attractions here are free to enjoy which is amazing. They’re so well maintained and presented too. 

While most things were closed in the middle of the day for prayers, the museum remained open and we spent a great 1.5 hours learning about the sultan. He seems like a very personable leader, who involves himself in sport, starting new community programs and has helped the country mostly progress during his so far 52 year reign. He has, however, made headlines this year for further enforcing sharia law here and controversially tightening the rules in April of this year. 

We saw a chariot, weaponry and many gifts from leaders of other countries. We even saw John Howard’s signature on the APEC summit plaque commemorating the summit held here in the year 2000. Apparently Brunei is a tax free country, and sometimes the sultan even deposits money into everyone in the country’s bank accounts! It’s also reported that he himself owns over 7000 cars (whaaaat!) and is one of the richest men in the world. 

Then we continued through the streets until we reached a shopping mall and had some yummy noodles and rice for lunch as well as some watermelon. 

Next on the agenda was a trip across the river to Kampong Ayer, the world’s biggest water village on stilts made up of 42 villages joined together by wooden walkways. It has been inhabited for over 1000 years and is the “original Brunei”. The walkways freaked us out as there were no railings. I’ve no idea how people with small children living here ever let them out of their sight!! 

Getting across the river was easy and cheap. For $1 per person we were whizzed across to the tourist centre where we climbed an observation for a great view of the area. I noticed the contrast here of the dilapidated water village houses with the sultan’s lavish palace in the background. We spent about an hour walking around. Despite being on stilts, the water villages had many amenities that “regular” towns have - we saw a fire station, a police station, a mosque and a school. Apparently there is even a petrol station! As well, we saw prawn crackers being made and some very colourful houses. The only downside was seeing lots of plastic rubbish in the river which broke my heart a little bit. I hope it goes nowhere near the turtles...

At this point the sun had come out from behind the clouds and we ran out of water. Luckily for us, men in boats approached every now and then touting a ride back to BSB. We paid $2 each for a scenic journey past the relatively new RIPAHS bridge, named after the sultan’s wife, and then back to the main jetty. 

From here we caught a bus to the Jame Asr Hassanal Bolkiah Mosque, the largest one in Brunei in terms of capacity which can hold up to 4500 worshippers at a time. We had missed the cutoff for going in completely, but we took in the beautiful exterior of the mosque and had a peak inside. There are 29 golden domes to commemorate the fact that the current sultan is the 29th sultan, and we had a laugh at the private escalator the sultan uses to get into the mosque. 

We then walked over to a market the tourist information had recommended, but it was pretty disappointing as it was full of food that had been sitting in their heat for goodness knows how long. At this point the buses had stopped running without us realising, but we had a case of “right place, right time”. A lady who was a passenger in a ride share called us over and told us to hop in as no buses were coming. Her driver drove us into the city for $2 each. His name was Dave and we chatted for most of the ride. 

Our last couple of hours here were spent enjoying an iced coffee, then a very cheap and yummy dinner. We had one last wander around the mosque and gardens at night enjoying the lights and the beautifully eerie call to prayer. I find it really depends on the person calling, and the guy tonight was good. After that it was time to go, and Dave the ride share driver from earlier picked us up and drove us to the airport (for half the price of a taxi) for our 12.30am flight back to Kota Kinabalu with Royal Brunei. We were the last flight out for the night. The positive we got the emergency exit row, the negative was the queue for immigration took twice as long as the flight!!

It’s been a big day. I’ve done 31,000 steps and have now been awake for 21 hours, but it’s definitely been worth it. I’m so glad we visited and learned so much about Brunei. The streets are very well pedestrianised and clean, everything is well maintained, and it was super quiet with plenty to do at the same time. Not one person all day was rude to us. In fact, people smiled and waved at us, asked where we were from, shook our hands and thanked us for visiting. But now I’m off to bed - it’s 2am!

Love to all

Claire

Xoxox