C & C globetrotting around the world…

We spent the night at LCCT in KL (low cost carrier terminal in Kuala Lumpur). Luckily we were able to sit at McDonald’s where it was nice and cool and relatively comfortable. We had breakfast there (you can’t have the healthiest eating habits when spending the night at the airport) before checking in for our flight to Brunei. Christoph had always wanted to go to Bandar Seri Begawan, the capital of Brunei, because of its name. We are now closer than we’ll ever be, so we decided to hop over for a few days.

Arrived at the airport in BSB, as it is often called, we tried to find a bus. We had read that public transportation is a rarity in this small country because everyone has a car. Taxis apparently don’t really exist either. We talked to 2 police officers and they sent us walking in one direction, to wait for a bus at the highway junction. We were there looking around and before we knew it, someone stopped the car and offered us a ride down-town. Of course at first we were a bit skeptical, but we didn’t have a choice except for walking the 10km to town and it being a safe country, we decided to go. The man was a Brunei Chinese who has lived in Vancouver. His mother still lived in Edmonton and he was very happy to drive us to our hotel and chat with us. Wow, we couldn’t believe it. We checked into our guesthouse and were not too happy to see that our $35-room looked like a hospital room converted into a hotel room with no bathroom attached. We still took it, since the next cheapest thing would have been a room at $70. Anyway, we won’t be spending time in the room and it’s clean, so that’s what matters. After a good nap, we went to a travel agency to get some info. The guy (Rudy) there was amazing: a true tourist information centre. He gave us lots of information without trying to sell us a tour, which was really nice for a change. He is a traveller himself and we talked a lot. In the end it turned out he is a CSer and told us that there was a CS dinner the following evening. That was his last day at work and he was moving to Penang next week. We were lucky. For the rest of the afternoon and evening, we walked around town and went to see the Sultan Omar Ali Saifuddien Mosque. This grand mosque was built by the current Sultan’s father in the 1950’s. Unfortunately we couldn’t go in, but it’s impressive from the outside.

The next day, we took a boat across the Brunei river to Kampung Ayer, the largest water village in the world. It has about 20,000 inhabitants and there are more houses being built. Some like to refer to it as “Venice of the East”. It has many walkways on stilts connecting the houses, the mosques and the schools. There is also a museum showcasing the history of the area. This water village has moved around during its history and was the capital of Brunei, until the British decided to move the capital on land and founded Bandar Seri Begawan. Actually, BSB was called Bandar Brunei (Brunei town) until 1970 when it changed its name to Bandar Seri Begawan, after the Sultan’s father, who abdicated from the throne at that date. After having walked around in the heat, we took the boat back to BSB. There we walked around a bit, hoping to meet some people from Waldrach. Christoph’s mom told us there are 4 people from there visiting Brunei at the same time as we were there, so we were hoping to meet them, which would have been really funny. In a cafe, we met people from Rheinland-Pfalz, the same Bundesland as Christoph, but not the same town. They were on a stop-over with the AIDA cruise and we talked to them for a bit. We then walked through a shopping mall and were disappointed. We had heard that Brunei is so rich and that shopping is the people’s favourite hobby (along with eating), but the stores here don’t look that appealing at all. Maybe the people just fly to Singapore or Europe? We also visited the Royal Regalia Museum, a museum where the Sultan exposes many gifts he received from around the world. Since the CS dinner was a bit further away, we tried to take the bus, but no Bruneian could agree on which bus to take, not even the ones on the bus we took. We ended up getting off the bus and decided to walk, since it wasn’t that far. Secretly we were hoping a Chinese Bruneian would come and offer us a ride again :).

We met 8 CSers at the Lemongrass Restaurant in Kiulap. It’s a Thai restaurant and it was nice to have Thai food again, our favourite. One guy only stayed for a bit, but he paid our drinks, which was really nice. We chatted during dinner and it was entertaining. Then, we went for dessert to another place, this time with only 4 other people. Two girls left pretty quickly and we were left over with Rudy and Iza, who told us lots of things about BSB and Brunei. It was a fun and informative evening. Iza ended up paying for dessert, which was very kind of her. At some point we received some cupcakes from somebody inside the restaurant (we were sitting on the terrace). The waitress said it was the guy’s birthday and he gave everyone cupcakes. How nice! And we didn’t even know the guy. They were our breakfast the next day, yay!

The following day we met up with Rudy and went to the market, where we had a yummy and cheap lunch. He took us to an archeological site where they are digging up remains from an old settlement and also showed us the tomb of the 5^th Sultan of Brunei. We then went to the Brunei Museum where the country’s history was explained through exposed artifacts. Rudy knew his way around the museum and pointed out special things to us. It was great having our own tour guide :). After the museum tour, he took us to his place where we picked coconuts. He has a tool which consists of a long rod with a metal hook at one end. He showed Christoph how to pull on the coconuts with it. It was pretty fun, especially because we got to drink the juice and eat the flesh afterwards. Coconut palms grow loads of coconuts all year round and we were able to pick which ones we wanted. Cecilia prefers the riper ones, which have sweeter juice and thicker, harder flesh. She was very happy that she got a perfect one. Christoph took a younger one with more juice and soft, floppy flesh. Rudy cut them open for us and we sipped the delicious juice. When we were done, he split them open for us to eat the flesh too. Wonderful!

For our last day in Brunei, Iza had offered to take us on a tour to Tutong district so we get to see more of Brunei. The country boasts nice beaches and pristine rainforests, but there is no public transportation to get there. We could have booked a tour to Temburong National Park, but it was very expensive. We were grateful that she had time to show us around, otherwise it would have been pretty boring staying in Bandar Seri Begawan since the town is very small and the down-town pretty dead. We went to a nice lake, but only stopped for a short while. The fact that there were signs to watch out for crocodiles also didn’t make us want to wonder off too far. From there we stopped at a place where there is pure white sand by the side of the road. It looked like salt or snow, so Iza and Cecilia pretended to surf. For lunch she brought us to a place where we ate a typical Bruneian dish called “Ambuyat”. It is a glue-like substance made from the interior trunk of the sago palm. You eat it by rolling the paste around the prongs of a bamboo fork and then dipping it in sauces. With it she ordered some beef jerky and a beef stew, which were all very delicious.

After lunch we headed to the beach. It was actually a nice place, but nobody was there, although it was nicely set up with picnic tables and a playground. We didn’t have our bathing suits with us, so we only dipped our feet into the water. We then headed back towards BSB, stopping at the Royal Country Club on the way. There we saw the horses the Sultan uses when playing polo and the fancy grounds. We also went to the Empire Hotel, a luxurious resort with 532 rooms decorated with gold, marble and precious stones. All rooms are elegantly furnished with European furniture and have beautiful views of the South China Sea, but the best is the Emperor Suite with its 675 sq meters, own swimming pool and jacuzzi. To finish today’s tour, Iza showed us some of the houses Bruneians receive from the government. It’s pretty impressive. Many of them will then expand the house and have 5 cars parked out front, which is insane. She then invited us over for coffee and cake because her maid had baked a marble cake. It was nice to see her little cottage, get to know her puppy and we finally got to try “weasel coffee”, kopi luwak. It is one the the world’s most expensive coffees because it has a low production. The coffee fruit are fed to a civet (like a weasel), which digests it and then the coffee beans are collected. We had seen it being sold in Vietnam, but never tried it. Now we had the chance and we were surprised that it actually tasted good, less bitter than regular coffee. The marble cake was good too. Afterwards Iza dropped us off at Jame ‘Asr Hassanil Bolkiah Mosque, Brunei’s largest mosque. It was built by the Sultan himself as a gift to his people. With its 4 main minarets and 2 golden domes, it is a fantastic sight. From there we walked the meeting place we had made out with Eve, another CSer from the dinner. She took us to the night market and we got to try many different Bruneian delicacies, which was fun.

As public transport is very difficult in BSB, Rudy offered for us to stay over at his place and to bring us to the airport in the morning. Brunei itself seems more like a sleepy kingdom than another Dubai. It has nothing modern to it, not even the roads are well maintained. With a bigger budget you can visit the untouched rainforests, but this was no option for us this time. We were happy that we met the CSers and they made the difference. Without them our stay would have been pretty boring and we wouldn’t have learned nor seen so much during our visit.