Brunei
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Perhentian Islands,
Brunei
Friday, April 11, 2008
Ok, so when I left KL, I had everything planned this time for my trip to the air port, as the last time I tried this in KL I ended up being a little bit late. I STILL managed to cut it pretty fine though~
Upon arriving in Brunei I was a little lost with my lonely planet being gone - but from past experiences I have learned to not rely on it too much anyway. It seems I struck it lucky.. and unlucky too. I had had a brief look online for accommodation before I came just to get an idea of what was available, and it seemed that a cheap hotel was the most budget option on offer. When I tried to explain to the taxi driver what I was looking for he had just the ticket... a YHA dorm room for only $10 Brunei a night!! That sounded excellent compared to a hotel room starting around B$60. The part I didnt like so much is the taxi driver charged me B$25 to get there, and it was only a 10 min drive! Ouch... :( At first I thought I was getting ripped off, but it turns out that taxis in Brunei are ridiculously expensive!
To put things in comparison I got a meal of fried noodles and a whole coconut (chopped open so I could drink the coconut milk as a beverage) for B$5. A big bottle of water went between B$1 and B$2 too.. so $25 for a taxi was rediculous.
Anyway.. I stayed in the main city of Brunei called Bandar Seri Begawan ( I think its called) and there wasnt a lot happening. Town was tiny - it consisted of about 4 blocks with one mall, and about 10 places to eat. There was nothing to see, and nothing to do. You couldnt go out for a drink as alcohol was totally banned. I started to wonder why I ever came here.
When I arrived it was late at night, and being hungry I went walk abouts for food, and to my surprise managed to get hassled by a prostitute... I think it was the only prostitute in town, as I managed to see her again the next night I went out for food. She wasnt pushy or anything however, just really annoying - and I couldnt quite tell if she was a man or not either!
My first and only day in Brunei I spent walking around the city trying to figure out what one of the worlds richest countries would be like. I decided it wasnt worth spending any money to do any sight seeing as there was nothing to see. I was bored within about 30 mins! I found a huge mosk gleaming with gold, contrasted with old falling-to-bits made-of-scrap houses on stilts in thw water right next to it. It was really strange seeing these poor looking houses in "one of the richest counties in the world". The rest of my day I spent checking out the big mall in town, but there wasnt much to see there. The whole place had such a run down, empty, boring feel to it. I couldnt understand why anyone would want to live there. Im glad I only had one fill day here... I was gonna make like a bald man and "get outta hair" as soon as I could!
After my 2nd night in brunei it was an early morning rise to catch a 6.something am bus to the main port town of brunei called Muara. In Muara I got my passport stamped and I caught a boat to a duty free island of Malayasian Borneo called Labuan and had about 4 hours there to kill until I caught my boat to Kota Kinabalu.
Pics = here: http://picasaweb.google.com/mrphillipthomas/20080411Brunei
