Bye Bye Brunei

When I heard that Brunei is the fifth wealthiest country in the world, I thought we’d have a break from the squalor of Bali and Java.  Not so.  

Our port orientation has instructed us to dress modestly, as this is a strict Muslim country.  Both women and men are told to cover shoulders and knees, and no cleavages and no pointing.  We’re also told that we can’t bring large bags, packs, or professional looking cameras.

I’m looking forward to our excursion through the water village.  Hearing of the wealth of the country, I’m picturing a Sausalito-like community of colorful homes.  

Again we’re at a commercial port which is some distance from the main city of Bandar Seri Begawan.  The bus travels the freeway into the city.  The county has a population of around 425,000 and the guide tells us that there is an average of 2.x cars per person, although, I don’t know if this factors in the 7,000+ cars that the sultan owns.

Homes and businesses look fairly prosperous, but the mosques and government buildings outshine everything. 

First stop is a fruit and vegetable market where we just wander around.  We’re all curious about the durian fruit that has been described as so ghastly smelling that it’s not allowed on the cruise ships. 

Next our group boards a small boat for a ride into the water village.   

Not quite what I had expected.  It’s colorful, but it’s basically a slum on stilts.  

One of our group asks the question that we’re all wondering.  “Where does the sewage go?”  I don’t think our guide quite understood the question.  He was proud to say that, because the sewage goes right into the water, they don’t use that as the source for drinking water.  We head that another guide proudly touted the efficiency of the catfish immediately gobbling up the solid bits.

 

We got off the boat and walked across the rickety wooden paths that run throughout the village.  Supposedly 30,000 people live here, even though the government has built and offers apartment housing for anyone who wants.  The village includes numerous communities all with schools, fire stations, and police and of course mosques.  Water taxis carry people back and forth.

After the water village we are dropped at the Malay Technology Museum, better named a cultural museum.  We breezed through galleries of models of colonial Brunei scenes.  The building itself was dated and smelled of mold.  A fellow passenger insists on taking our picture in this stairway because she thought it was so beautiful.  No accounting for taste, but here we are.

One last spin through the city for a look at some more opulence, the sultan’s palace (1,788 rooms, 257 bathrooms, 110-car garage) and prestigious mosque (5,000 worshipers)  were so big that they wouldn’t fit into the frame of the camera.  So, this is just a typical ordinary mosque.

No beer here.  Back to the ship.