Brunei Darussalam, Borneo

Erik: Brunei separates Sabah from Sarawak, the other district of Malaysian Borneo. It is one of the world's smallest countries, and is quite wealthy due to its off-shore oil reserves, though the oil is projected to run out in the next 10-20 years, so it will be interesting to see what happens to the country then. As it is, the Sultan of Brunei is incredibly wealthy. He owns 250 luxury cars, and his palace has 1100 rooms and nearly as many bathrooms! He is generous with the wealth, and distributes it in positive ways among his people – subsidizing housing purchases, free education and health care, etc. The capital city of Bandar Seri Begawan boasts enormous, majestic, gold-laden mosques, and big shopping malls, though it also has an enormous water village where 32,000 people live on less opulent houses built on stilts over the river, complete with their own water-schools, fire and police departments.

Again we'd planned to stay only a few days stay in Brunei, and again were detained against our will. This time I caught T's strange cold with its piercing headaches, and we both suffered from bronchitis/sinusitis. We visited a local doctor, and paid a total of about $40 for the two consultations complete with antibiotics and other medicines he prescribed (and issued) us. Not bad, but still feeling poorly, we decided to stay in the very expensive city several days to nurse ourselves back to health.

The highlight of BSB for me was our boat trip out to see the proboscis monkeys. We met a very nice water taxi man who took us on a river tour of the city and royal palace. He was a great, energetic guide, and when he told us that we could see the monkeys from the river early the next morning, we quickly agreed. At dawn the next day, we headed out and were not disappointed – the river was gorgeous at sunrise, and we saw dozens of the simians with huge, dangling noses – mostly we saw them from the back as they swung away through the tree branches, but several sat and stared at us from a distance. Our guide was almost overly enthusiastic in pointing them out - “look! look! there another monkey! honk, honk” (his strange, nasal call to the monkeys.)

Talor: Once again, I was expecting to see wealth and opulence, but it seemed just an extension of Malaysia, except cleaner. I guess just the name of the capital city alone, Bandar Seri Begawan, made me envision something much more exotic. Instead, all the people looked the same, spoke the same language and the food was identical, just more expensive. After spending a night at the only budget accommodation in town, which was none too pleasant, we checked into the mid-range Brunei Hotel and paid a whopping $57/night (the most we'd ever spent on our trip for accommodations). But it was worth it. Clean and comfortable and with a big screen TV, we took the time we needed to get well enough to hit the road again...

Our photos of Brunei:

Bandar Seri Begawan, Brunei Darussalem