Well my last few posts have been a bit all over the place, but here we go… Here’s a few of the contrasts in Brunei – a shot of a delapadated house in Kampong Ayer in the centre of BSB, the girl who welcomed me to Brunei in perfect English, the river taxis, a shot of the mosque I never saw, and my boatman for 30 mins (pointing…”School, School, house, fishing, school…lots of schools in Brunei…ad infinitum).
Yup, the place is awash with cash, although it’s not in your face, you just know it. The good thing is it’s not that expensive a place to live in for a day or so. Museums are free, and you just haggle with the boatmen before you go for a tour.
I had an early start this morning in Labuan, up at 0645 to get the ferry at 0800. It’s just I turned up and the first one was at 0900…oh well. Before I knew it I was handing in my Malaysian landing card (despite now having a visa for here until mid December), and getting the Brunei stamp on my passport in some shack.
I have to say a sorry to Alex though – I’m afraid I’ve let you down…you see I had a reservation at one of the few cheap places, then read reviews of chinese hookers etc hanging out there and it generally being a seedy place. As I knew there wouldn’t be much to do here, I move to a 23 quid hotel instead, even before I left Labuan. Sorry, my days of real adventure have yet to come….
After a wee snooze (knowing a day would be a long time to kill) I wandered around Brunei. I went to the hawker stalls at the market looking for the peanut pancake things I knew you’d get there, however, probably due to Ramadan, there only seemed to be fruit and veg there. A little old lady sent me on my way asking no money for the bananas I went to buy from her… I then went for a walk around Kampung Ayer which is a stilted village in the middle of the town, one of the things I wanted to see. Unfortunately it was a bit of a let down with not as much character as expected, but a few ramshackle shacks on the way in with deserted typewriters etc. There were a few kids hanging around outside a house so I asked to take a picture then got into a wee conversation – a really cute wee girl speaking perfect English, lining up her brothers and sisters for me while welcoming me to Brunei. I ended up on a half hour boat tour on one of the hundreds of boat taxis buzzing around the river. The commentary went something like this, with a lot of pointing :
“School, school, school, fishing………school, school, school, fishing…Brunei have many schools….school, school, firestation, boat school, Brunei have many schools, school school, police…musum (I soon worked out this was museum)… etc” Still, he was a very nice man, told me he loved me and any other english he could say while I handed him my $10BD note. I left with a distinct lack of photos I expected.
I decided to chill out again as there was hardly anyone around town, so I find myself just after a 4 quid nice meal, surrounded by young Brunians (is that correct) online gaming shouting “Fuck…Fuck…biiiiiiitch….I’m dead….Fuck….then the occasional game update in their local lingo”.
On the whole – nice people, boring place. Pretty much as expected. But hey, country number 32.
