Brunei
Brunei has never been on the top of our “have-to-go” destinations. But when visiting Borneo we just had to go and have a look.
Sharia laws
To start with, Brunei laws are terrible in many ways and we strongly disagree with them.
For example – the Sultan of Brunei declared a couple of years ago that Brunei would implement sharia laws in various stages.
The punishments vary from fines and jail for crimes like failure to attend Friday prayers or pregnancy outside the marriage.
If you are found guilty of offences like sodomy or adultery you can be sentenced to death by stoning.
Modern thinking…
A tiny but rich sultanate
Brunei is situated in the northern part of Borneo, surrounded by the Malaysian state of Sarawak.
Brunei is a sultanate and the very, very wealthy sultan is a busy man indeed.
The small country, with a population just over 400 000 people, has one of the worlds highest per capita GDP due to rich energy reserves. Revenues from oil and gas has resulted in that Brunei´s residents continously enjoy generous state contributions and they pay no taxes.
What in the world is an absolute monarchy?
Besides from being the Prime minister, and as such the head of government, he is also the Defense Minister, Finance Minister, Superintendent of Police, Chancellor of the national university, Supreme commander of the armed forces and Supreme leader of the Islamic faith. Not a bad resumé…
Stay or go?
Do we, as travelers, have a responsibility to avoid or boycott a destination that do not stand for the same democratic values that we do?
Or does our visit help contributing to a more open society and help the local communities instead of putting the money derived from tourism in the wrong pockets?
This is not an easy thing to decide, whether or not the ethical aspect should be the determining factor.
Form your own opinion
We believe that the people of a country usually do not reflect the leadership of a country, especially when it comes to dictatorships and similar. That is why we want to make our own opinion first.
Most people all over the world are almost always, regardless of origin, the same – good, friendly and welcoming, even to strangers. (Even though some countries of course feel more welcoming than others.)
We decided to go
Nevertheless, despite all the question marks on the moral aspects of Brunei we decided that we wanted to go and have a look.
We boarded the Royal Brunei Airlines flight for a very, very short 24-hour round trip. Destination Bandar Seri Begawan, capital of Brunei.
We had not made any reservations whatsoever and thought that everything could be booked on-site, as we are used to. As Swedish citizens we could stay 90 days in the country without a Visa which made the entry very smooth. Some stamps in the passport and of we went.
In retrospect – should we have needed to pre-book anything?
No, not at all as Brunei turned out to be like any other travel destination out there.
Golden mosques
When you step out of the taxi it is pretty clear that Brunei is a wealthy country. The first thing we saw was the richly adorned Omar Ali Saifuddien Mosque situated in the center of town.
But something felt strange. This was not the ordinary kind of bustling Asian capital that we where used to. Here everything was quiet.
It was quite, and it was clean, but that was about it. We felt like we were the only ones around.
It was very hard to get a feeling for Brunei, was this a nice place or not? I am gonna be honest, I still do not know.
It is far from being my favorite destination, but I canot say it was terrible either, I would say interesting and boring, kind of.
Venice of the East
After watching the mosque we headed to the largest water village in the world, Kampong Ayer, or “The Venice of the East”.
I have visited the real Venice a couple of times and I can tell you one thing, there is not many similarities.
Ok, there were some boats, but no gondolas what we could see. I will let you decide for yourself which one of the two you prefer.
Water world
After some negotiating we finally found a nice and fluent English speaking boatsman/captain. He took us on the “grand tour” along the river and the 38 kilometer (23 mile) boardwalk that connects the 40 small villages that is Kampong Ayer.
There are supposed to live close to 30 000 people in the water village and pretty much everything you might need you will find here. There are schools, police and fire stations, mosques, supermarkets and even a hospital.
Everywhere there were boats zipping back and forth.
Kampong Ayer has a very effective shuttle/water taxi service that picks up residents from various jetties located around the village.
Captains invitation
We were then asked if we would like to visit the captains (whose name I am afraid I forgot) house for a cup of coffee and some snacks. Well of course we would!
So after a tour around the different villages (they all looked pretty much the same) we set sails towards his home.
Parking in a water village is not a big problem and we stepped straight from the boat into the living room.
There we were greeted by Mrs captain and their little daughter who went shy and quickly hurried of into one of the rooms in the back of the house.
Fish instead of fika
After some small talk about life in general and a lame attempt to discuss the political situation in Brunei, that was not really answered, we were served something different than we were used to.
Swedes usually offer their guests “fika” when they invite guests into their home. But instead of cinnamon rolls, cookies and coffee we got dried anchovies and something that perhaps was meant to be coffee, but it was not. Let us call it “substance unknown”.
We love trying all kinds of foods and local traditions when we travel, and did so now. But frankly, this was not good.
Even though the food was not our cup of tea we really appreciated the gesture and hospitality of the family, they were really nice people.
Back to KK
After the rather short stay we got back into the boat and headed into town.
We took a short walk and had some supper before we headed out to the airport and our late night flight back to Kota Kinabalu.
No regrets
All in all, I believe that Brunei was a very interesting place to visit.
Maybe “interesting” should be synonymous with boring but I would not say that we regret our visit, not a bit.
In all honesty this is probably not a place we will visit again. But that probably has more to do with the fact that our little planet just is too big and there are so many places that we still have not visited yet.
Once in a lifetime
If you want big city skyscrapers or amazing mountain views. Well, then Brunei might not be your cup of tea.
Is there a lot of amazing and grandiose things to see there? Not really, nothing I can remember anyway.
Anything special that you will not find anywhere else? Nope, I do not think so.
But, if you want to come away from the mainstream travel destinations, only for a while, and experience something “special”. (Read rather unexciting and dull.)
Well, then the kingdom of Brunei just might be something for you.
