TRAVEL: BRUNEI February 20

full name:  Brunei Darussalam.       Capital: Bandar Seri Begawan

Location: Borneo island beside Malayasia. Asia's 4th smallest country.  population: 428,962 people as of 2018 - Bruneian's 

royals: Absolute monarchy/ dictatorship, one of the few left in the world (Vatican City,  Eswatini, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and North Korea)    after Queen Elizabeth II of U.K The Sultan is the second longest reigning monarch in the world. with the same royal family ruling for over 600 years - the longest reigning in the world. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T_dppjag06Q

https://www.news.com.au/travel/travel-updates/inside-the-insanely-decadent-life-of-the-sultan-of-brunei/news-story/80324e5d317133887b918384c6284d1e

richness: oil rich country with a monarchy. uses Brunei Dollar and US dollar.  5th richest country in the world

religion and language: muslim, No alcohol allowed. Homosexuality is a crime punishable by death by stoning.  Language: Maly but also speak English and a little bit of Chinese also. 

region specialities and sights: 70% of the country is covered by forest with much of it protected. Notable species include pangolins, proboscis monkeys, Sunda clouded leopards, several species of rare hornbill and the slow loris primates.

brief history: didn't gain its independence from Britain until 1984. ruled by a sultan who is one of the richest men in the world.  there is no income tax with an average life span of 75. 

Brunei Darussalam‎ means  "abode of peace"

we arrived late that night from a quick flight on a small plane. almost felt private, big comfortable seats with free juice and a snack. I had some bother on arrival at the border control as I had left china 3 weeks before, due to the outbreak of Corona Virus 19, however as it was over 2 weeks they let me in, eventually (as its meet to be a 14day virus/active) we stayed in a nice hotel and then the next morning stayed in an ovo hotel in the centre beside the pier area overlooking the waters and Kampong Ayer.

we checked in and then met up with a couch surfer who lived in Brunei and Miri part time for work and family. 

he first took us to the Task Lama recreational park. its got a nice big walk and even a waterfall. after this we visited the mosque the Jame'Asr Hassanil Bolkiah Mosque has 29 golden domes 

Tasek Lama Recreational Park

after this we headed back to the hotel just in time as it started raining heavily. later we went for a walk around the local area and joined a small boat tour with a load of Korean tourists who had been sudying in the USA.

the boat tour took us around the area, passing the Kampong Ayer floating village. he showed us the palace from afar, its huge! and open to the public once a year. it costs over 1.5 Billion USD and over 200,000M2. known as the Astana Nurul Iman and is argued to be one of the biggest palaces in the world. The palace contains 1,788 rooms, which includes 257 bathrooms, a banquet hall that can be expanded to accommodate up to 5,000 guests, a mosque accommodating 1,500 people. The palace also includes a 110-car garage, an air conditioned stable for the Sultan's 200 polo ponies, and five swimming pools. In total, Istana Nurul Iman contains 2,152,782 square feet (200,000 m²) of floorspace. Istana Nurul Iman has 564 chandeliers, 51,000 light bulbs, 44 stairwells and 18 elevators and approximately 17 floors.

 

 

 

 we then headed out into the mangrove areas to look for Proboscis monkeys and even spotted some monitor lizards, no crocodiles though

 

Kampong Ayer - Venice of East

Brunei is home to the largest stilt settlement in the world. Founded over 1,000 years ago, Kampong Ayer consists of 42 adjoining stilt villages which house around 30,000 people. The settlement has been nicknamed the ‘Venice of the East’.

After the tour we checked out the local park and the Sultan Omar Ali Saifuddin Mosque, it's main dome is made of 3.5-million-pieces of glass mosaic overlayed with real gold leaf. overlooking a small river

 

we walked over the Sultan Omar Ali Saifuddein Bridge, it has a golden moon statue in respect to Allah.

Raja Isteri Pengiran Anak Hajah Saleha Bridge

The Mercu Dirgahaya 60 monument means 'Long Life, Your Highness 60 Monument', which was erected in 2006 for the 60th birthday of the Sultan. The tall bent column shows the number '60' in Arabic. At night the monument is illuminated.

later on we visited the Huge Gadong night market. getting the biggest lime juice I've ever seen. its full of food. we even bumped into our boat tour guide. spent the rest of the night chilling before getting up early to get the bus to Miri the next morning at 8.15. there's 2 buses a day at 18BND, a quick ride of only a few hours. we crossed the border into Malaysia.

https://www.easybook.com/bus/booking/bruneidarussalam-to-miri

TRAVEL: BORNEO Kota Kinabalu

 Kota Kinabalu 

I got a relatively cheap flight from Manilla to Kota, id been in the Philippines for over  3 weeks, extended due to the outbreak of Covid 19 in china, so instead of flying back on the 3rd of February I had refunded my ticket and stayed on, instead exploring more of the Philippines. however, one can only spend so much time not he beach and I wanted something new, so Kota Kinabalu was my choice. my friend who I had stayed with in Indonesia in Jakarta from couch surfing had recently done a trip from Kota to Brunei to Miri. (Kota and Miri being part of Malaysia Borneo) all doable via boat or bus and at a reasonable price too. I also had a student who had been to Kota and loved it, sharing suggestions and telling me how nice it was (its easy to get to from Shanghai and there's often cheap flights which id seen before on offer) 

I didn't know much about Brunei but was still interested in going, a very small, but rich muslim country with a monarchy, one of which has some interesting stories (it's one of the top 10 richest in the world, however its very small)  and so I decided id try a similar trip like my Couchsurfing friend had suggested

[brunei royals https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T_dppjag06Q 

pre boarding was strange though as the gate location was suddenly changed and not mentioned clearly, was a bit confusing, I had arrived early so there was plenty of time. at the departure gate I met upwith Andrew, a couch surfer (Peruvian who grew up in Canada and was living n the states) the flight wasn't too crowded and was quick and easy. when we arrived we called an uber to the hostel. it was really nice, capsule rooms. I also got the lend of a converter as the used the 3 prong U.K style plug heads and I only had the 2 head Asian ones. there was a kitchen with breakfast included, books to lend and a lounge area. Andrew didn't like it so he changed to a nearby hotel as they didn't have a safe box available to use. 

we checked out the local night market. the seafood was huge!!!! the lobster was as big as and much thicker than my arm! they also did lots of fruit juice which was great. tried lime juice, not too sugary or sour and very refreshing. its quite expensive, as, like Brunei they often use dollars as currency. 

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bY-NmUE9Nww

 

the next day we checked out the local sights and changed to another hostel, also with free breakfast included. the hostel's in Kota are quite cheap and often include breakfast and have tour options. the most popular. when checked out the mosque, but it was restricted entry to all but local muslims with temperature checks due to the outbreak of covid (though at that time it hadn't spread too much, but due to Chinese new year  chinese had been travelling pre-lockdown) we walked around checking out the local sights. we decided to skip the beaches and island, both having just come from Palawan island (Puerto princess/el nido/etc)

Masjid Bandaraya Kota Kinabalu

Atkinson Clock Tower

after this we got an uber to the Mari Mari cultural village, (bit expensive but does include lunch/dinner and the guided tour) there was only a few of us in the tour, we had to choose a "leader" which Andrew offered to be. it was about 2-3  hours long not including the dinner. we were introduced to several different tribes. we were told about there cultural traits, habits, beliefs, and daily routine. each had a small house, some were long houses, some on stilts. some with a couple floors.

the first had 2 floors, the upper floor was for the women to sleep, the ladder was taken down at night so men couple go up to them ;) another was a long house, a room for the parents and small kids, a separate room for the girls and the boys would sleep in the common room.

   

Mari Mari Cultural Village Mari

the tribes made and used different things depending on which area they were from, some where fishes, hunters (they had an alligator like god and would often kill enemies another hunting tribe were sometimes cannalbalstic) some made honey and rice alcohol which had samples to try, we were told how it was made and stored, there was also food samples of the stuff they made. one tribe had a sort of trampoline in the centre as jumping was important, they also did tattoos, and we were all offered henna ones, mine smudged so they let me do a new one. 

 

  

once we had looked around all the different areas, getting picture in costume and trying out the different foods and drinks we arrived at the theatre area for the show for a quick refreshment. probably one of the nicest Lime juices I've ever had (I drank a lot of lime juice in Borneo and Sri Lanka,yet none were perhaps as good as this though we keep trying to find one "following the lime juice dream" really should try to made some.)

the performance

 

Kota Kinabalu 

 

Kota Kinabalu 

 The next day we visited the zoo, determined to see some of the famous monkeys with the weird noses -  (Proboscis monkeys) and orangutans that are famous in this region - it's called Lok Kawi Wildlife park 

http://sabah.attractionsinmalaysia.com/Lok-Kawi-Wildlife-Park.php

it has a botanical park area too however on the day we went it was closed unfortunately. at certain times during the day they feed the animals and you can watch/ help, we watched them feed the Proboscis monkeys, the orang-utans and the otters while they did so they told us a bit about the monkeys and their personal history. for instance, the otters love fish and attention, they love to use off, nearby they have a silver langur who they received from a dealer who couldn't care for him, he was lonely, he had a habit of cradling his arm over his head and often sucked his thus as a comfort method. he stayed across the river in the trees and loved the bananas. 

 

The proboscis monkeys live in troops. once old enough the male will start to fight with the boys if they get to old an question his authority, often around that time the males will go off to find their own families and start their own troops. the Orang-utans were mainly old ladies, donated to the zoo, the oldest was the fattest and most hairiest, the girl let us throw over some fruit to her on the island to eat.  we walked around and checked out the other animals. emus, bison, giraffes, the double billed hornbill, parrots etc, they have lots of pygmy asian elephants, ostriches too which you can feed, be careful though, they can be powerful with their beaks and nip you when going for the food.

 there is also a huge walk in Avery with birds. here they had a peacock and a hornbill who seemed to be friends. I came too close as they were on the path and the peacock started to go for me! like I was encroaching his terriority. the huge hornbill flew off, the sound of his wingbeat deafening as we were so close. eventually the peacock moved on and we could exit. 

 

After the zoo we headed back to the city centre, as it was the weekend there was lots of people in the main  downtown area as a night market was set up, there were singers and bands at each end, food and drink stall along with a few craft stalls. we then went to the airport having decided to get a flight rather than spend the day on a bus to get to Brunei. but the bus (along with boat) is a cheap convenient alternative

[There's only one bus per day from Kota Kinabalu to Brunei, and that is Sipitang Express that leaves daily every 8:00 AM and estimated arrival is 4:30 PM in Brunei. Travel time is 8.5 hours and bus fare is MYR 100 ($25.61 – ₱1,256). The Sipitang Express bus terminal located near the city park.] 

https://migrationology.com/how-to-get-from-kota-kinabalu-to-brunei-in-1-day/