Orchid Garden Bandar Seri Begawan

... there was "a very special and important announcement" as they put it that if one traffics drugs, death is the penalty. I never heard what the penalty is for playing with the Allah Machine and don't want to find out. And get this, as we walked out the airport, a convenience store had Billy Jean going and the clerks were listening intently to it. It's Michael, Michael, Michael 24/7 over here.

So what can I tell you that is interesting about this place ...

... hamburger, chelsey = fried chicken). We then raced back to our hotel like little girls as the bombs continued to go off with increased proximity and frequency.

We went on our first boat ride the next morning on a "speed boat" to Bangar. This led us through a watery tree-lined maze which somehow they know how to guide the boats through. During the ride home, Chelsey asked the tour guide if there were crocodiles in the waters. Chelsey looked a ...

... skills in parts. Not only that, but it takes five hours to get back down again and is even ********* the legs than on the way up. The driver from the tour company who had collected us from our hostel in Miri very helpfully recalled the time when he had taken a couple of climbers up to the Pinnacles in 1996 and one of them fell on the way down and subsequently died! Tracey had already decided that she would rather staple her eyelids to the floor than spend ...

... we were wrong. And 15 pounds for 10 minutes on a boat is more expensive than London! Anyway we decided to calm ourselves by heading to the Brunei Museum, which was not the best museum ever, but I did like the Sultan's collection of Islamic artifacts. There were lots of gold decorated copies of the Qu'ran and a model of a mosque made out of pearl. Also there was a decorative boot made of pearl with a compass in the toe. It was all very pretty and ornate. After the museum we had a ...

... bag I went for a walk around the market which had flies and smelt bad and there was no way I was going to eat anything from there.. I then took a walk thru town and made my way to the mosque which took USD 5 million to build and it's all gold and flash ECT but right over the fence the river is filled with smelly rubbish. I then took a walk thru the village... which is all these houses that are on the water I got told that 30,000 people live ...

... to concentrate on a non-rolling chair let alone a chair that rolls with the waves. Or if you do - duct tape them.

One week down another 2 or so to go.

I heard on the news last night that pirates have been hijacking boats in the seas around Somalia - they better not come near us... the sultan will whip out his lightsabre and new Stark missiles.

 


 

... time killer and therapy for the soul. So far I have discovered about KB on the north shore of brunei: - everyone drives like my mum. max speed of 50km/h and they slow down for pedestrians even when they are 10m away from the start of a zebra crossing. - this place is massively rich in oil. it was literally seeping out of the ground back in the day. when u stand on the shoreline u can see oil platforms everywhere covering the horizon ...