brunei - bsb

My flight to Bandar Seri Begawan, the capital city of Brunei Darussalam (usually just shortened to Brunei, and the capital name shortened to Bandar) was at 0645…that’s too early to catch a bus from kuala lumpur, so I spent the night at the airport…the LCC (low cost carrier) terminal isn’t a bad place to spend the night…coffee bean is open all night, what more could a girl want? I don’t know if any of the other food or drink places are open all night, but I’m guessing some of them are…after checking in, the flight left a little late, but it wasn’t at all full, which was nice…I got three seats to myself…since I hadn’t slept well at the airport I took the opportunity to nap…I don’t remember how long the flight was, but it was easy, and deplaning (I think that’s the word they use now?) went smoothly…when there aren’t many people on the flight, nothing takes very longJ…signs at the airport were in Arabic, malay and English…there were a couple information counters, both staffed with friendly ladies…

there is a bus into the center of the city, though there isn’t a specific place to catch it; there also isn’t a set timetable for when the bus will come by the airport…both information counters suggested I go upstairs and wait just outside the departures hall…the bus came along soon enough, and it was only $1!! (while I was there the US dollar got me 1.3 brunei dollars…

Brunei has plastic money, like Malaysia, Australia and new Zealand…I love it…

I found a guesthouse rather quickly after getting to the center of the city…since I hadn’t slept properly for a couple nights in a row, I laid down, just to rest for a while…I didn’t ever fall asleep, but I did get to that lovely almost asleep point…sooo relaxing…the aircon was going strong, it was actually pretty chilly in my room…the room itself was very plain…a big bed, one chair, a bedside table and a desk-ish table…nothing else…the window gave me a lovely view of the side of another building…

Sometime during the afternoon I decided I needed to go out…with only two full days in the country, I didn’t have a lot of time…(though, according to the guidebook, you don’t need a lot of time to see the country)…

My walk took me along a very flat set of streets…if there are hills in brunei, they’re not in the city…at least, not that I could see…I walked past an amazingly green pitch, with stadium seating on both sides…there was a monument to brunei at one end, but all the gates to the area seemed closed…(the next day I found one open gate on one side, and one on the other end)…this ended up being the only real green I saw, as the capital city is more cement than anything else…

My next stop was a museum dedicated to the sultan of brunei…more specifically, it was dedicated to a few really important ceremonies of his life…it had a couple photos from when he was young, and from when he attended sandhurst military academy in England (I think that’s the same academy princes William and Harry attended?)…there was plenty of regalia from his wedding, and his coronation ceremony…complete with uniforms and a replica of the wedding seats/throne…there was also a lot of regalia from his silver jubilee (25 years on the throne) ceremony…they even built a replica of the float he rode through town...more like a chariot of sorts…complete with all the soldiers and citizens walking with it, and those watching along the parade route…it seemed that a lot of world leaders gave him gifts for this ceremony, and most of the gifts were models of something in their lands…artistic and such, but what’s the point of giving someone a model of your best mosque? Maybe I didn’t appreciate it because I’m  not a world leader…there were lots of these gifts on display…when you walk into the museum, you’re directed to put your belongings into a locker for storage, you’re not supposed to walk around with anything…no pictures allowed in most of the museum…I looked at most everything, but I was rather annoyed by the large Chinese group that came in not long after me, and was quite noisy…there were three kids with that group running all over the place…why do people allow their children to do that?...i ended up just standing in one place for a while, and letting the group pass me…it’s easy to walk through the entire museum and know you aren’t missing anything…it’s been set up quite well for ease of visiting…I was absolutely freezing the entire time I was inside, they must have outreageous power bills from the air conditioning in that building!!

After walking back outside and briefly enjoying the heat (you know when you’re freezing and walk into warmth, how good it feels until it becomes uncomfortable again?) I walked toward the mosque that is basically the centerpiece of the city…all white out the outside, gold domes on top…beautiful…at that point, the sky wasn’t particularly beautiful, so my photos didn’t turn out so nicely…oh well…as I approached the main gates, I could see a sign…when I got close enough, I read that since it was the holy month of Ramadan, the mosque and it’s grounds were closed to non-muslims…fair enough, though I would’ve liked to see the inside, howeva briefly…

I continued walking around the outer fence of the mosque, and soon came to the beginning of an area called kampong ayer…the water village…houses are built on stilts, with boardwalks to get from house to house…the water was low as I was walking around, so you could see (and smell) the muck underneath…you could also see soooo much rubbish…yuck…the houses weren’t airtight, but with the breezes along the river, that’s probably a very good thing…it doesn’t ever get truly cold in brunei (the idea of cold is a very relative idea, I’ve learned) so air coming through your house is never going to be a bad thing…I don’t think these houses had air con, so it was actually a very good thing to allow breezes through…howeva, the houses were very old, and in many cases, looked as though they would fall down very soon…very old looking wood…no railings along the boardwalks…lots of colours had been painted on the houses over the years, none of it looked new…but I bet the constant humidity does a number on any household decoration…

There was a bridge over to the other side of the river, and from that bridge I was able to take a couple photos I really liked…the interesting contrast of the beautiful clean, white mosque in the background, the old-ish, poor looking houses in the foreground…brunei might be an oil rich sultanate, but it doesn’t have the flashy appearance you associate with places like dubai…it doesn’t have that super modern appearance…

I walked through a bit of the water village, than back around the backside of the mosque…3/4 of the mosque is surrounded by a moat/lake, and in that lake is kept the royal barge…why brunei has this, I don’t know…I don’t know that I would’ve been able to get any closer to the barge, even if I’d been able to go on the grounds of the mosque…

From there I kept going to a giant shopping mall, one of several in the city…according to the guidebook, Bruneians, love to shop…this particular mall seemed mostly empty…shops moving premises…not much going on…but I did find a place that sold nerds, and I hadn’t had those in ages…I also found a Jollibee, which is where I had dinner…since it was Ramadan, there were very few people eating…at that point I really realized how few people I’d seen eating while walking around…not that you’d normally see people eating while walking in the streets, but restaurants and such were all empty…(during Ramadan, Muslim’s fast during daylight, as a measure of devotion to Allah)…not everyone in Brunei is Muslim, there is freedom of religion, but the majority of the population is…

There are lots of water taxi drivers who want to take tourists on the river, through parts of the water village…I figured I’d already seen what I wanted to see, and the views while walking along the boardwalks were better than from the water taxis…plus, I had no idea what I should pay for a water taxi, and I’m not good at bargaining…(nor do I enjoy bargaining)…there was also a small monument along the waterfront, a gift from the people to their sultan, on his 60^th birthday…I don’t know how old he is now, but I found out I’d missed his birthday celebrations by just two weeks…darnit…

I walked back toward the guesthouse, and passed a coffee bean along the way…I adore coffee bean, and was even more thrilled to see a sign for free wifi there…woo hoo!!! I hurried to the hostel, grabbed my laptop and my day pack, and went back to the coffee bean…if you know me well, you know how I love that chain…having a chai latte from coffee bean takes me to a happy place…I blame my friend brooke for my love of coffee bean…when they make a chai latte, they use tea, milk and vanilla powder, as opposed to starbucks, which just adds flavoured syrup to steamed milk…in addition to my chai latte, I had a piece of white chocolate mousse cake…not as good as the choco mousse cake I fell in love with in Korea, but still pretty tasty…I proceeded to waste all sorts of time online…

When I decided I should get back to the guesthouse, it was raining…but not a lot…I figured I’d wait it out, then walk over to the mosque and try to take a few night photos before going back to the guesthouse…I’d seen postcards with night photos, and I liked them…I’m all about copying a good photo if I’m able to do so…the rain did let up, and I was able to get my photos…lovely…

The next day I slept in late, knowing there wasn’t much left for me to see in the city…the city isn’t filled with landmarks…I first went to a small market, filled with fruits and vegetables…if I’d had the facilities to cook for myself I’d have been in heaven…I love fresh fruit and veggies…

The market was close to a Chinese temple…at this point, I’m totally over Chinese temples…I’ve seen way too many of them over the past few years…I love all the colours, mainly red, but the designs aren’t anything I haven’t seen before…wandering through the temple didn’t take long, it wasn’t big…the Chinese are everywhere in asia…China has been around for a long time, and you can see it’s influence in a lot of other countries…

From there I went back to the mall for more nerds…YUM…and postcards…lots of postcards…

After returning to my guesthouse, and writing some of the postcards, I returned to the coffee bean…another chai latte, and a different cake…I don’t remember which cake…again, it was tasty, but not as good as the choco mousse cake…oh well…lots more time wasted online…

When I returned to the guesthouse that evening I packed up most of my stuff, so I wouldn’t have to do it in the morning…the next morning I got ready to travel, went back to the little bus station, and caught the bus back to the airport…it turned out I was pretty early…checkin wasn’t open yet, so I just sat there and watched people slowly drift in…some looked ready to travel, others not at all…as in, they had nothing with them…

Finally, checkin opened…just in case you ever go, brunei has a departure fee…I don’t remember what they call it, but that’s what it is…$12…it’s a good thing I hadn’t used all the money I’d pulled out of the atm…I wasn’t expecting that at all…I wish this sort of information was in guidebooks, or at guesthouses, etc…why aren’t departure fees ever mentioned until you get to the airport?

The flight back to Malaysia was full, and I had a middle seat…not fun, but the flight wasn’t long…