Brunei
Brunei is a country that does not often pop up on a map of places people would like to travel to. As a matter of fact, most people do not even know it is a country as it shares the island of Borneo with Malaysia and Indonesia and makes up less than 1 % of the land on the island and is roughly half the size of Qatar with a population of just over 400,000 people. It has been ruled by a Sultan continuously for the last 700 years (more or less). As it is an oil rich country, the Government provides subsidies for the population to live and also medical care and everyone seems to be very happy here, even though to me the prices were very high on items. CNN had a very good article sometime back on Brunei located here, which talks about Brunei’s move toward ecotourism and I believe with the wildlife they have to offer here, that they will turn into a major destination to see many of the animals that are endemic only to Borneo.
It is a Muslim country with very strict laws on alcohol and tobacco with neither of them being sold in the country and tobacco is taxed heavily if you bring it in as a foreigner. Alcohol is not allowed to be drunk by locals, but foreigners are allowed to bring in an amount for “private consumption” only and must be finished while in the country.
Most of these things would scare away and individual from visiting, but this is a place I have always wanted to visit and since I was on the island of Borneo, I thought I would swing by, and I WAS NOT DISAPPOINTED one bit.
As we took a land crossing from Miri to Brunei, we had to pay our duty on tobacco and alcohol and made our way to the capital of Bander Seri Begawan. This may be one of the smallest capitals I have been to in population (200,000 plus people) and land size, but it is also one of the most cleanest capitals and countries I have ever seen with harsh fines for littering and smoking in most public places.
A nice trip to the market is always a good way to see the people of a country….
A trip to the National Museum (no photos), but it was one of the most impressive museums I have ever been to, and then a trip to one of the newest mosques and the biggest mosque in Brunei. I have been to many mosques in my life and these two seemed to impress me as I was fond of their slightly different architecture they used, with most materials being imported from Europe…
The main attraction in this capital city is of course the floating villages which have been around for many years (after being burned in fires), they have been rebuilt and remind me something of Inle Lake in Myanmar. While we did not see many people there as it was a holiday, we took a chance just to marvel at what they looked like and how many were built together being connected…
Night shots of the mosques are great here as the city is rather quiet after 8 PM and you can get some lovely shots as the main places are very lit up….
River Safari
I believe that in the next ten years, Brunei will be a major tourist attraction for their wildlife as the country is covered in 70% forests with some of that mangrove forests along the salt water river. I had the opportunity to take a river safari boat for a few hours to get a glimpse of this and I was not disappointed one bit…..
We saw many animals including a salt water crocodile up close, as well as a monitor lizard, some nice birds, and a squirrel….
Of course the mangrove scenery is always beautiful with the trees built right up against he water….
There will always be monkeys hanging around here….the Long Tail Macaques that we have seen before are known as the “Gangsters” of the Monkey World, these were quite shy and were not looking to bother us, as they were just going on about their own way, probably waiting to invade nearby houses for food….
Of course the main attraction on this river safari if you are lucky enough to see them (which we were) is the Proboscis Monkey or as people call them “Big Nose Monkey.” We saw a few different troops of them and they were playing up in the trees and eating the young leaves of the tree as this is their main source of food. What was different about this troop that we photographed was that it was mostly females with a few babies. The previous Proboscis we saw were only troops of males, looking for females…..If you look closely you can see the babies, however the monkeys were very high up and in a bad position to photograph….
We got to see one of the rowing teams hard at work on the way back for the Regatta coming up in a week….
Finally, it would not be right leaving Brunei without some monkeys right across the street at our hotel messing around with each other, and giving the locals coming to and from the market a hard time. Some of the faces they were making were priceless as you could definitely make memes out of them….
4 responses to “Brunei”
Daniel! Thank you so very much for the write up. It is amazing. Really appreciate it.
Wow, Daniel. You do amazing work. It’s so fun to see Brunei through your eyes. The photos of the market and the monkeys are so interesting.
Your presentation of Brunei is surprising. I definitely had some misconceptions. First, I thought every square inch was going to be wall to wall opulence, but I see some very familiar scenes in your photos of the markets and wharfs. Second, given Brunei’s diminutive size, I wouldn’t have guessed it had so much wildlife. Cool. Thanks for the lesson Daniel.
Thank you Scott. Sometimes you just have to go into a country to experience what they have and how people misconceive how different countries really are. Please feel free to comment on anything else as I value your feedback.