Brunei is an odd place. So much money and so few people - the population is only 375,000. Strange little place, but nice enough to spend a day or two wandering the streets of the capital, Bandar Seri Bagawan (BSB).
We passed through the border into Brunei with minimal hassle as our helpful landlady in Miri had organised for a man with a car to give us a lift to BSB - we breezed through both Malaysian and Brunei immigration without ever having to even leave the car. Brilliant. We later spoke to some people who had saved some money by using local transport - they had taken 5 buses and it took 5 hours. We sat in the back of a car for 2.5 hours and ate Mentos whilst watching the towns flash past. Money well spent.
As Brunei has so much income from oil and gas, they haven't had to chop down their rainforest (yet) to make money from palm oil etc etc and immediately after crossing the border this was evident. The buildings all looked the same as in Malaysia but there was a lot more forest visible even from the main highway through the country. There was also a definite improvement in the state of the roads and the cars on them too! Thank you Mr Sultan.
We splashed out on a nice hotel in BSB (with a pool - bliss in the midday heat in a city) as there's not much budget choice. It was in need of some new wallpaper and telly, but at least we had a telly. And it had HBO which meant that we had something to do in the evenings... Brunei is a dry country (excepting local rice wine apparently) so there is no nightlife at all. Streets were pretty much empty after prayer time...
We spent a day and half exploring BSB - did lots of wandering around the streets and along the waterfront and trying not to break expensive (and hideous) glass sculptures in the shopping mall.
We visited the Royal Regalia Museum which houses a load of stuff given to the Sultan on his coronation and jubilee. What does one give a sultan? Well, lots of gold or glass or gem-encrusted models of things from your country it appears. Queen Lizzie had given a nice vase with acorns and other British things etched on it. Not quite so extravagant as the Saudi gift of a model of a giant mosque made out of gold. Just what one needs. Unfortunately we weren't allowed to take pictures of the mad gifts so here's a pic of the outside of the building:
From there, we strolled back through the town to the waterfront and found the boardwalk to the Kampong Ayer (water village). BSB has a number of water villages which consist of houses, schools and mosques on stilts over the river connected with rickety old boardwalks (with no railingsI may add and the water did not look appealing even in the Bornean heat...). We did a loop through the village and although the houses looked worn out and like they were about to topple into the water, they all have electricity, water and satellite tv!
We made our way around to the mosque just after sunset so got some nice photos in the dusk and dark when it's all lit up by weird green lighting. There is a man made lagoon in front of the mosque which creates some nice reflections and provides a home for the replica royal barge which is occasionally used but mostly just floats on the lagoon looking pretty and expensive.
As Brunei is split in two by a little piece of Malaysia, to avoid numerous border crossings, it's advised to travel onto Sabah (the northern part of Malaysian Borneo) by sea via Labuan Island. So we caught the afternoon ferry to Labuan (after quite a long windy local bus ride to Brunei's port) and emerged from the ice box of the ferry back in Malaysia (our third time filling in the immigration form yawn). We spent the night in Labuan so had a chance to explore the town and buy some duty free chocolate before getting the morning ferry to Kota Kinabalu (I remembered to leave my fleece accessible this time...).
So we've now spent 3 nights in KK and it's an unremarkable town really - it's pretty much all been built in the last 50 years so no nice buildings to look at and it's pretty similar to all other Malaysian towns. We had a bit of a 'travel fatigue' day yesterday (not good when we both lapse at the same time) so hid in our room faffing with long overdue admin tasks and internet things. We perked up today and visited Manukan, an island about 20 mins off the coast - beautiful beaches and some of the best snorkelling I've ever done from a beach.
We're heading off to Mount Kinabalu National Park tomorrow to have a stab at climbing the thing. My legs and lungs are not looking forward to it but hope the views will be worth it!
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