I am on my way home, from Kota Kinabalu to Singapore today. But! I managed to snag an itinerary that let me spend several hours in Brunei!
I flew Royal Brunei, which seems to be a lovely airline. Flights begin with a sung prayer via seatback video, which is unique and rather pleasant. Brunei may be the "most Muslim" country I have ever been to in the sense of how seriously they take Islam. For example, this mosque is at the airport.
Most significantly for me, given that it is Friday, is the mandatory prayer time closure, which I believe is mandatory from 12:00-14:00, but for many businesses is extended on one end or the other or both by 30 mins or more. The woman at the airport who sold me my SIM card told me I would need all of my 2GB of data even for one day given that there would be nothing to do for these middle-of-the-day hours!
Another interesting aspect of Brunei is its wealth. Apparently most citizens own cars, so taxis are rare. The airport website even warns that you should arrange for a taxi ahead of time because you cannot rely on there being any at the taxi stand! Also, Brunei does not have Grab or any of the other rideshares that Malaysia and Singapore and Indonesia do. Instead, they have "Dart," which is clearly not as sophisticated or established as its counterparts. Still, this was what I used to get from the airport into the city. I had to wait 20 minutes, but the city is not far, and I was dropped outside the main post office with 15 minutes to spare before it closed at 11:00. Except, despite those being the hours online and on the wall of the building, it turns out the post office is just closed all day on Friday now.
So much for mailing a post card.
I bought lunch before everything shut down, and then headed to the river.
Kampong Ayer, apparently the largest stilt village in the world, is in the middle of the river here, across from where I took the picture below.
Boatmen take you from the city to Kampong Ayer for one Brunei dollar, but I was interested in more than just crossing to Kampong Ayer: I also wanted to see crocodiles and monkeys!
I negotiated with the boatman--he asked for $50, I offered $25, he came down to $40, then said $35 if we didn't see monkeys. I said $35 regardless and he said let's go. I dropped my water bottle into the river getting into his boat and he was kind enough to pull alongside a convenience store on stilts to buy me another one.
We headed down the river and were clear of the city in no time at all. It felt like it was just us, the river, and the jungle along the banks.
Oh, and there were lots of crocodiles!
We probably saw at least a dozen.
Monkeys, however, were harder to find. The boatman said they hide in the middle of the day, so he was skeptical we would find any. At one point he managed to point out a female, as it scurried into the bush. I saw her tail, but little else. Eventually, however, we found a large male who was calmly sitting in a tree, apparently just waiting for a tourist to visit!
Proboscis monkeys live in colonies, and we were able to spot some of this guy's wives and children in the trees close by, but none of them were as comfortable in the open as the patriarch.
After about 40 minutes or so, we turned around and head back towards Kampong Ayer, which is where my boatman (and I assume most of the boatmen) live.
The stilt village is centuries old, and in fact it is how human settlement first began here. It is much smaller (~10,000) today than it was at its peak (maybe 50,000+, I have read)--but that is still a lot of people living on top of a river!
Kampong Ayer has its own mosques, schools, police station, and so on. This is the high school:
And the fire hall:
Here is one of the mosques, and you can also see how clean water is being transported from land:
You can also see the electricity transmission lines.
Apparently the one utility Kampong Ayer is still somewhat lacking is sewage/waste disposal, and unfortunately this is evident where the water is low and you can see garbage stuck in the mud.
After the little tour-by-water, I asked the boatman to drop me in the village, which he did. There are many drop off/pick up points around the village, and you can see some of these in the photo below.
I was dropped at what I would describe as the main tourist spot, right by the Kampong Ayer museum.
The museum was closed, of course, as it was not yet 14:00, but I am not confident it is open on Fridays anyway. It was extraordinarily hot and I was not about to hang out and find out. Instead, I headed along the pathway to explore--the boatman said I should feel free to walk everywhere, which made me feel quite comfortable. You can see at the end of this walkway there is a sign clearly designed for tourists.
There is a public housing complex with newer houses that each look much the same. Apparently Brunei is trying to encourage people to continue living in Kampong Ayer, and this project must be one way they are doing so.
The associated walkway is sheltered and paved.
There is also a large community space, where apparently you can play badminton or volleyball or maybe sepaktakraw (a popular sport in this part of the world which is basically like volleyball except you use your feet, not hands).
While this housing and walkway look safe and comfortable, they lack the character that most tourists would find appealing. These scenes feel more "traditional," albeit perhaps not as comfortable or safe!
I face-timed my wife as I walked around so she could see some of the village, too. Given that it was still prayer time (and extremely hot) there were very few villagers around, but I did see a few people. Mostly, though I had the village to myself as I explored.
At this point I still thought the post office was going to reopen, so that was my next destination, back on the mainland. As I noted above though, in fact it was not going to reopen, so I headed to Brunei's most iconic building, the Omar Ali Saifuddien mosque, which is a couple of blocks from the post office.
The mosque was built in the 1950s by the current sultan's father. I am not sure if tourists can go inside, but I just walked around. I assume its exterior is the most impressive part, anyway.
I was losing energy from all the time in the heat, but before returning to the airport I visited a nearby shopping mall, which was now opening up after prayer time closure. Despite the heat, there was some activity getting underway outside.
After an iced coffee in some air conditioning, I decided to head back to the airport. I still had some time, but I was worn out and I don't think there was much more to see on a Friday. Instead of using Dart, I found the bus stop and was able to get back to the airport that way. My impression from the bus is that public transportation users are almost entirely foreign workers (mostly Indians and Filipinos), not Brunei citizens. The bus was not air conditioned, nor particularly fast, but it took me to the airport without issue and only cost one Brunei dollar (Dart had cost me $11 coming into the city). At the airport, there is no post office anymore, but there are free showers after security. No towels, sadly, but I showered and changed anyway, which was nice to do after a hot day and before my flight to Singapore. I will spend tonight in Singapore and then head home via San Francisco tomorrow morning.
