RTW Nomad - Part II

One day in Bandar Seri Begawan was enough. The city is small and you can see the main sights in a couple of hours. The main reason why I wanted to visit Brunei is because in 2006, as I was bored at work and surfing the web reading about travel destinations, I saw a picture of an amazing mosque with golden domes, a lake around it and a barque in front of it. This is when I decided that one day I had to visit this tiny country.

The mosque I wanted to see was the Omar Ali Saifuddien Mosque that was only three blocks from my hotel. When I first got my first glimpse of it, I was so dissapointed, the large gold dome was white because is under renovation, the lake around it is being cleaned and it's almost empty, and the paint from the exterior walls is coming off. They are working on renovations and it's going to look glorious once is finished, but since this was the main reason why I found myself in this tiny country was to see this mosque.

One of the men from the mosque told me to visit the Jame'Asr Hassanal Bolkiah Mosque about thirty minutes outside of the city. So I went to the the bus station where all the locals were staring at me. In Brunei, everyone has at least one car, the highways are wide, the traffic is organized and they have a good bus system but only very poor people seem to use it. So to see a westerner taking the bus to go to a mosque is absolutely shocking. When I got to the mosque I stood by the gate in awe. This mosque was magnificent. Fountains around it, gardens, birds flying around, the beautiful tall minarets with intricate mosaics. It was huge, with golden doors with intricate patterns, fountains inside, beautiful spiral stairs, marble. I was there for almost two hours admiring the beauty of this complex, even I am a not allowed into the praying hall because I am not muslim. Needless to say, although I was dissapointed with the renovations at the Omar Ali Saifuddien Mosque, the Jame'Asr Hassanal Bolkiah Mosque impressed me. It's now my second favorite mosque that I have been lucky to visit (the first is the Hassan II Mosque in Casablanca and the third is the blue mosque in Istanbul)

After visiting the mosque, I went back into town. I went to the open market and from there I hired a water taxi for $20 Brunei dollars for one hour to take me around Kampung Ayer which is an area of water villages that is home to a population of about 30,000. It's the largest water village in the word. The houses are rustic and are a built on top of cement posts. It's like a maze and they are connected by wodden bridges. The only way to get around is through boats. The driver showed me the schools, the fire stations with its boats, the gas station for boats, the schools boats taking students back to their homes, etc. He also took me to an area where all the houses look the same and he told me that because there was a fire twenty years ago the king built this new neighborhood of water villages where a house with four bedrooms will cost $39,000 Brunei dollars ($27,500 USD) that can be paid over twenty years with no interest. Most residents seem to like the sultan, I am told that Brunei residents can buy homes and cars and pay in installments with no interest, they have free education and medical services and there is no personal or corporation tax.

From the river I was also able to see a gold dome that is the roof for the sultan's palace, Istana Nurul Iman. Unfortunately the golden dome is all that can be seen, everything else is hidden by mangrove trees, but apparently you can go inside the palace at the end of Ramadan (a reason to come back). I read a Brunei tourist magazine that Istana Nurul Iman is the world's largest residential and administrative palace currently in use. It contains 1,788 rooms, 257 bathrooms, and a floor area of 2,152,782 square feet. Amenities include 5 swimming pools, and an air conditioned stable for the Sultan's 200 polo ponies, a 110-car garage, a banquet hall that can be expanded to accommodate up to 4,000 guests, and a mosque accommodating 1,500 people. The palace was built in 1984 at a cost of around $1.4 billion USD and has 564 chandeliers, 51,000 light bulbs, 44 stairwells, and 18 elevators. It is also a home to a car collection that includes custom-made Ferraris and Bentleys as well as 165 Rolls Royces.

Today is another travel day. I took a bus to the ferry station, and then a 1.5 hour ferry to Labuan, an island part of Malaysian Borneo. I have four hours until my 3 hour ferry to Kota Kinabalu, my final destination for today.

Yesterday was a travel day. I took a fligth from Jakarta to Kuala Lumpur, then waited at the aiport six hours to take a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Brunei. While waiting I had a chat with a man from Sudan that teaches English, math and physics at an arabic school in Jakarta. I mentioned that I had been to Africa in 2006. He said that I should go to Sudan, he said that the news make it seem bad but that it's a beautiful country. He said that if I ever visited he would get some local wine that is made from dates but because alcohol is illegal in Sudan we had to hide it, otherwise they would receive 40 lashes but I didn't have to worry about that because I was foreigner so I wouldn't be submitted to that.... I don't know if I would push my luck like that. He also told me that if you have sex without being married they dig a hole and bury you in it with your head out and stone you to death, but he again assure me that since I was married this wouldn't happen to me.... sounds like a lovely country.... maybe I'll go there next with a stop in Saudi Arabia... just kidding.

Anyway, I arrived to Brunei last night. In Brunei alcohol is almost illegal. You can bring two bottles of alcohol or six cans of beer into the country if you are a non-muslim. Don't worry, I didn't bring anything into the country but as soon as I got to my hotel I was received by my chinese host and other chinese travellers with a bottle of smirnoff and had a pretty good time in a country where alcohol is pretty restricted. It's chinese new year, so they were all excited celebrating with cake and vodka.

Today is raining really hard. Brunei is a tiny country in Borneo. I am in the capital Bandar Seri Begawan. I am in Brunei only one day because the city can be seen in just a couple of hours and Brunei is a very expensive country. Budget accomodation is 35 Brunei dollars ($25 US). There are some bus routes but they stop running at 6 PM so yesterday when I arrive from the airport, I had to take an expensive 25 Brunei dollars taxi into town. The other attractions in Brunei are the jungle and wildlife which I love but I am going to see those in Sabah (Malasyan part of Borneo) because is much cheaper.

So it seems that it finally stop raining so I am going to get something to eat and see the sights.