Centrepoint Bandar Seri Begawan

... is quiet, clean, safe, and good enough to wander around a few hours. About the only buildings of note are the mosques but they are naturally off limits to us infidels anyway. It's like old churches in Europe...you've seen one, you've seen them all. Of course I am always looking for the unusual and right here in BSB I have found it...a village of 70,000 people built on stilts in the river right across from downtown. And yes, the only thing standing between me and ...

... of the regular 45. That afternoon was spent relaxing poolside later followed by watching Michael J Fox and Nicholas Cage movies.<br><br>Some info we have heard about Brunei. The Sultan has built the most expensive hotel in the world ($1B dollars), he bought a car for every family in the country (400,000 people live there), he offered to move everyone out of the stilt villages and into homes, he pays $140M a year to have the British army in based ...

... able to see hardly anything due to the surrounding trees and gates. Again, if you're here at the right time it seems you can visit the palace as well. We could have rented a water taxi and sped up the river but our hearts weren't really in it after all our walking and rejection.<br><br>Lucky for us Dairy Queen opened its welcoming doors to us and we indulged in some spectacular cheesecake and Oreo ...

... visit Niah national park, which we'd already passed, thus had to take a bus back from Miri and wasted in total three hours. From the main junction it's still 14km to the park entrance with no regular transport operating on this route, only private (meaning expensive) minivans. I got a hitch from two guys actually going another direction, but they took me all the way to the park. I felt a bit awkward about it as ...

... attractions throughout Borneo". When we checked in, the rottweiler on the reception desk, who was masquerading as a middle-aged Malaysian woman, growled at us and reluctantly showed us to a room. The hostel was pretty grim, but as it only cost the equivalent of £8 a night for the two of us, we decided to offload our backpacks and then go and view a couple of nearby hotels. After being shown various shabby hotel rooms that had dirty, stained carpets and ...

... strange was, that while being in the mud, you floated on it rather than sinking into it. It felt kind of like in the Dead Sea, where there is such a high salt concentration in the water that you literally float on it. Only this time it wasn't salt water, it was mud mixed with volcanic gasses. It felt exhilarating, but weird at the same time.<br><br>After our mud bath we decided to go to the beach on the other side of the island rather than returning to the ...

... on it's last legs so I succumbed to the Apple takeover and bought an iPod touch. I've found out it's got internet on it as well. It also seems everywhere in Malaysia and Brunei has wi-fi so it's like being online permanently. It's great! We're really roughing it this time round. I have a Nintendo, mobile phone and a friggin iPod. What happened to a pair of flip flops, one pair of keks, a ...

... their shoes! Damn 'The Humidity' and all who worship her! Brunei Terminal is quite small and very, very-very quiet at this time of day so plenty of seats to slouch on, trying to get as low as I can hoping to reduce the humidity, no such luck! Even on the floor its saturating. I drop to the floor and do my normal exercise in a vain attempt that a burst of adrenaline will act as a defibrillator and shock my body into the world again, but all it does is sap what little spirit I have left. Sit ...

... par bus bien entendu. Le chauffeur etait content de nous voir. Imaginer, tout le monde a une voiture a Brunei, il s'ennuyait. Imaginer en plus, personne ne peut se payer un autobus publique a partir de cette hotel. hihihi Par la suite, nous avons visite le garage royale (encore une fois). Les babioles en or, carosse de grande occasion, etc, qui n'allait surement pas dans la decoration du palais. Ce sont les ...

Good news, Kate has made it to Brunei. It is a 7 hour flight from Brisbane to Brunei, and she's only a quarter of the way to London. Movies of choice on the high definition 3 inch LCD screen in the back of the seat were Iron Man and Maid of Honour... an interesting choice.. covering the dodgy Patrick "McDreamy" Dempsey, and the awesome Robert "I'm Ironman" Downey Jr. angle. Kate ...