Brunei
Trip Start
Sep 30, 2011
1
16
29
Trip End
Nov 23, 2011
Bandar Seri Begawan, Brunei
Wednesday, November 2, 2011
I crossed over to Brunei Darusalem. The bus arrived at around noon. The first big noticeable difference from Malaysia is that a lot of the writing is in Arabic. Brunei is a strict Islamic country. It smells like smoke in every building just like all the other Muslim countries in the world. There is no bars here or no alcohol. The city center is very small. It only took me about an hour to walk around it. The most famous monument is the Omar mosque. It is pretty nice. It is in a good location with water surrounding it. The sidewalks were more of a nice marbled tile rather than a normal sidewalk. There really isn't a whole lot to do in this city or country. I just landed here because I got a ticket to Philippines from here for US$60 departing from here.
11/1/11
Day 33
I slept in as late as I could and then checked out of the hotel and left my bags there. My first stop was to the Malaysia Technology Museum. It was an alright museum featuring the things I had already seen by visiting Malaysia. It basically featured the evolution of long houses and their way of life, evolution, working and foods that were performed or done while in the long houses. I tried to stop by the Brunei Maritime Museum, however it is not yet opened. It seems to be a state of the art building on a lake and will be a good museum in the future. The last museum was the Brunei Museum. This went through all the history of Brunei. It had a lot of oil fact and where the oil is distributed, how much they produce, then onto the wildlife and plant life, then onto the economic figures of population, routes of immigration and another section on religion featuring old copies of the Qu'ran of some of the first people in Brunei. I was off to the city, then from the city to “The Mall.” That's actually the name of the mall and it was about 4 KM from the city. It was a decent mall and not really a whole lot to do there, but it did kill time. I was able to watch a good movie and eat some good food, so that was nice. I was off to the actually city again to use the internet and pick up my bags, then to the airport taking the last bus at 7 PM. I got online for a long time at the airport. I tried to fall asleep for an hour, but my body just wasn't allowing it. I think I'm getting too old for airports. I used to be able to do this all time, but now it's not so easy. I got a chance to reflect on Brunei a bit. The positives were the bus fares being only $1. It's small, so it's easy to get around. The museums have free entrances. The negative part is there is not much to do there. The country kind of freaked me out at times when I would walk in the capital city and there was nobody out. It was quiet and dead, but there could definitely be worse places to be. I felt safe and enjoyed my stay there, but would not recommend going any longer than what I did.
