Water Water Everywhere, but not a Drop to Drink
Trip Start
Jan 02, 2009
1
20
34
Trip End
Dec 07, 2009
Bandar Seri Begawan,
Brunei
Saturday, July 18, 2009
The Omar Ali Suifuddien Mosque
Despite Brunei being an extremely wealthy country, BSB is not the lavish city we had expected. There are none of the ostentatious shopping malls full of designer shops or huge skyscrapers that are found in other capital cities. The only really impressive building in the city centre is the stunning Omar Ali Saifuddien Mosque that dominates the landscape and looks incredibly beautiful when lit up at night. Brunei is a Muslim country and the sale of alcohol was completely banned in the early nineties resulting in a complete lack of nightlife or any kind of scene. Subsequently, BSB is a very quiet and rather dull city. However, we found it to be very clean and pleasant, with lots of parks and green spaces, and the people we encountered were extremely friendly and helpful.
After our experience in the jungle, we decided to treat ourselves to a decent hotel. We found one next door to the rather flash Sheraton, which had a swimming pool set in a lovely tropical garden. There were more monkeys and exotic birds in the hotel garden than we had seen during our week of trekking through the jungles of Borneo. As there is very little to see or do in BSB, and as it rained torrentially every day we were there (and this is the dry season), we spent most of our stay in the hotel using the pool, ordering room service whilst watching movies, or eating in the hotel restaurant
On the Sungai Brunei River
. However, one evening we did venture out and hired a speedboat to take us down the Sungai Brunei River at sunset to see the Istana Nurul Iman, the Sultan's Palace. Unfortunately, as the Palace is surrounded by tall trees, it was difficult to see much apart from the gold dome that sits just above the tree tops. It was worth the trip however, as our boatman spotted some probiscus monkeys in the mangrove trees which line both sides of the river and he turned the engine off and steered the boat underneath the trees so that we could sit and watch them. Probiscus monkeys are native only to the forests of Borneo and are very distinctive with pendulous noses and bulbous bellies. We had been hoping to spot some during our trek in Borneo so we were really pleased to have such a good view of so many of them as they swung in the branches above our heads and fed on leaves. We had previously planned to mark the 6 month anniversary of the day we started travelling with a slap-up meal and a bottle of fizz, but as we found ourselves in BSB on that date, with no alcohol to be found anywhere, we decided to delay the celebration until we were somewhere with a decent wine list. We also watched the Men’s Semi-Finals of Wimbledon whilst there. The match with the British hope, Andy Murray, started at around 10pm Brunei time. We had managed to blag a poolside table at the Sheraton Hotel next door to watch the match whilst eating supper. It just didn’t seem right watching the match without a few beers or a bottle of wine however. It is amazing how much you miss something when you are not allowed to have it!
The main reason for our visit to Brunei had been to organise a flight to Bali, but when we enquired at a local travel agency, we were told that the route from BSB to Bali had been cancelled and that we would have to fly there via either Kuala Lumpur or Jakarta. This was most inconvenient as it meant that we first had to travel in the opposite direction. As we had no choice, we decided on KL and left BSB after 3 days.
