The Sultan of Brunei

Thursday night I made it back to my favorite hostel in KK...the north borneo cabin. The receptionist was glad to have me back and we watched forgetting sara marshall and she bought us a bunch of beers to celebrate me leaving to brunei.
On Friday, I was supposed to meet Hannah and Andrew at the ferry terminal to head to labuan to get to the tiny country of Brunei. The ferry was cancelled though for the time we needed in order to catch the next ferry. I couldn't find hannah and andrew anywhere, and as I don't have a cell phone (i refuse to become a flashpacker like everyone else) I couldn't call them. I decided to go to the bus terminal as I knew you could take a bus to a town called manumbok and then get a speed boat there to labuan. I got there just a few minutes before the bus left, hopped on, and luckily saw that andrew and hannah were there smiling and saving me a seat. So we took the bus and then boat to Labuan, a little duty free island in sabah. We hung out a bit there before taking the ferry to Brunei. Alcohol sale is forbidden in brueni and muslims aren't allowed to take any in. Westerners are allowed to bring in six cans. Well some malaysians had beer with them that they couldn't take into brunei and they had lots left, so beer was passed around the boat and as we were the only westerners, we got the majority of it. Brunei is a huge oil producing country and the ocean on the route to Brunei was like a rush hour of supertankers. Brunei is an interesting country. Originally controlled by the british, but then being taken over by malaysia until they discovered oil and were able to stay independent. Brunei is the richest country per capita (only 400,000 people live there) and the sultan was the richest man in the world for about 20 or 30 straight years before some people like bill gates took over and he's now dropped to a lowly 7th. B/c it is so rich, it's an expensive country and the cheapest places to stay were looking to be around 25-30 US dollars when I'm used to paying 5-9 dollars. However, I got lucky and found this youth center place that had the only hostel in the capital city of Bandar Seri Begawan (BSB). I think it's something similar to a ymca for muslims. As it has a nice pool, squash courts, badminton courts and other things and it's mainly local people staying there though there was a crazy australian there. The guy gave me a dorm room to myself and it was really nice and even had strong air con, all for about 7US. Everytime you enter though you have to have your temperature taken and checked for H1N1 as it's quite the scare here apparently. The sultan's birthday is on the 15th and it's usually a monstrous celebration, but it has been almost entirely cancelled due to "the sickness" as it's known here. I met a nice bruneian man and we went out to eat along the waterfront that night.
The next day I got up early and went and explored the city a bit as hannah and andrew were staying at a nicer hotel and wanted to sit and enjoy it. So I walked around town and went into the famous omar ali saifuddien mosque, which is gorgeous and sits out over the water.
I met up with andrew and hannah around lunch and we took a bus to the jerondong amusement park. Hannah had been ecstatic about going here as it was her sister's favourite thing in SE asia when she came several years ago. The uber rich sultan had built it in 1998 and it was the biggest theme park in SE asia and all free. After 2000 though they started charging 5 dollars to go in for unlimited rides, which is still amazing especially since it is known for having absolutely no lines. So we went up there but found that it didn't open until 5pm and even then only about 5 rides were open. One of the gates to the park was open, so we snuck in and walked around. It was a crazy and eerie place. Like almost being in a horror film or post apocolyptic city. Most the rides were overgrown with vegetation, the sidewalks cracked, several statues tipped over. The roller coasters missing. It just was really weird. Apparently with lack of popularity among locals, it had fallen into neglect and disrepair and they had even sent a lot of the rides to australia. Hannah was quite disappointed as was I b/c a cheap amusement park with no lines would be amazing. As there apparently was no busses back to BSB even though we had gotten one there, we decided to walk to the Empire Hotel, the infamous hotel built by one of the princes and the world's first 6 star hotel (as it's not popular though you can get a suite there including all meals for US 150). The guard at the amusment park said it was only a 10 minute walk along the interstate. After about 30 minutes we realized he had pointed us in the wrong direction, so we started to hitchhike. A police car came along and picked us up and drove us to the Empire Hotel. It was quite the hilarious site when we rolled up to the hotel in the police car b/c we got lots of draw dropping stares and one of the westerners with children there just shook his head at us, thinking it must have been drugs or alcohol or something. We checked out the hotel a bit and then caught the bus back to BSB. We then visited one of the museums (all museums are free here) that showcases all the gifts given to the Sultan. It's fairly interesting to see the gifts all these people have given to a man who can buy anything he so wants. Queen Elizabeth II gave him a nice waterford vase. There was no gift given from America, though the lonely planet said that Colin Powell had given him a bust of general grant. My favorite was the canadian prime minister who had given him a statue of a walrus waving.
At 6 that night, the guy I had eaten dinner with took us on a tour of the area in his car. We went to the royal mosque which was absolutely gorgeous against the darkening sky and all lit up. It has huge crystal chandeliers and gold covered minurets and domes. it was quite the amazing site and incredibly huge. After that we went to a special night market, where the food was plentiful, cheap, and quite tasty. After that we stopped by the empire hotel again and saw that the prince and the princess were there watching a movie. So we took some pictures with the 2 cars, of their supposedly 500 cars, that they had chosen to drive that night. After that we went to the amusment park, which was still basically deserted and paid the 1 dollar for unlimited rides which ended up being a shooting game, a carrousel, bumber cars, and a sweet go-kart track. After our fun at the amusement park, we went by the princess' huge house and then the sultan's palace which is the largest palace in the world--It has 1,788 rooms!
This morning we took a water taxi along kampung ayer, a stilted village in the capital, which was quite cool and of course got to see lots of neat mosques along the way.
Today we have hired a car (nearly as cheap as a bus between the three of us and better time) to take us to Miri, Sarawak, Malaysia. They will stay and check out the niah caves there, but I will be taking the night bus onto Sibu and then a boat up the betang rejang river to Kapit and then Balaga to visit some longhouses. I would have liked to stop in miri, but I have a flight booked for going to bali in kuching, so I'm running out of time and I'm still a bit nervous I won't have time to really appreciate and do the longhouses which are very famous in borneo.
Brunei has been quite nice and an unusual experience. It's just kind of a weird place. It's extremely rich, but doesn't show its riches like, say a Dubai. There's really not much to do and the city goes completely dead after 6pm with no public transport, really no taxis, and no one out. And of course there are no bars or anything. The people are all very friendly, and it's an incredibly conservative country of course. Not many tourists come here b/c there isn't much to do and the accomadation is quite expensive (but I got quite lukcky) and the fly from KK to Kuching instead of going overland. And of course the whole sultan thing here is quite funny. With his birthday coming up there are pictures of him all over. Royalty is quite a big thing here, and it made me think about King Reg. I think he would like all the fanciness and luxury and pampering that goes on here.