Days 172 – 173: Brunei

Photos:http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2062015&l=c3919&id=1101094

The next morning I caught a ferry from KK to Pulau Labuan, a Malaysian tax haven with absolutely nothing of interest for yours truly, and from there I caught another ferry to Bandar Seri Bagawan, the capital of Brunei Darussalam.

For those of you who are a little rusty on your Southeast Asian geography, Brunei is a tiny country on the north coast of Borneo that is bordered on three sides by Malaysia and one side by the South China Sea. It only became independent from Britain in 1984, but it's now one of the richest countries in the world, driven by its reserves of oil and natural gas. There's only one problem-- the oil and gas are going to run out in 30-40 years. When that happens, no one is really sure what is going to fuel the economy. I just hope they haven't been saving for the future by investing in US subprime mortgage bonds....

But for now, the oil is still flowing and everyone is happy: education and health care are free, there's no income tax, and BMWs, Mercedes and Lexuses whiz down the streets.

Brunei is also super-Muslim-- easily the most Muslim in Southeast Asia, and up there with some Gulf States. The skyline of BSB (as everyone calls the capital) is dominated by the minarets of giant mosques, the sale of alcohol is prohibited, and most females wear headscarves. And the country is governed by an Islamic Sultanate; the current sultan is Sir Hassanal Bolkiah, the 29th of his line, who also happens to be one of the richest men in the world.

So far the most interesting story I've heard here concerns the sultan's younger brother, Prince Jefri. It seems Jefri has a weakness for gambling and otherwise spending vast sums of money, and he was sued by the sultan (his brother) in 2001 for misspending $16 billion of his country's money. And if that wasn't bad enough, consider that Prince Jefri also happened to be the finance minister.

But for all the strangeness of this place and its history, there's really very little to do here besides wander around the modern, tidy streets. That's what I did after checking into the local Youth Hostel (the only budget accommodation in town), but after a while I got so hot in my jeans (I figure wearing shorts here is in poor taste) that I went back to my hostel for a swim in the pool that was just next door. I got a lot of strange looks from the other swimmers, but no one said a word to me, which is a marked difference from everywhere else is Southeast Asia, where unfamiliarity brings calls of "Hey Mister!"

Indeed, Bruneians seem a good bit more reserved than their Southeast Asian counterparts. That's especially surprising when you consider that many Bruneians are not really from Brunei at all-- they're from Indonesia or Malaysia or India or the Philippines and are here to work and send money back to their families (and I saw evidence of that in the remittance shops that are on every corner). But it seems that once foreigners come here, they adapt to the local environment and assume an air of quiet dignity. For me, it was somewhat of a relief to be left alone for a couple days.

After dark I visited the Omar Ali Saifuddien Mosque, named after the country's 28th sultan, which cost $5 million to build and is lit up in a brilliant green at night. But marveling at the splendor of giant mosques is about the extent of the Brunei night life, so I called it an early night and caught up on all the sleep I didn't get while in KK.

The next day I took a bus a few kilometers out of town and visited the Jame'Asr Hassanal Bolkiah Mosque, a huge golden-domed structure and the largest mosque in the country. Not being Muslim (but how can they really know?), I wasn't allowed inside, but just walking around the exterior and observing the fantastic architecture was interesting enough.

Back in town, I strolled around the water villages known as Kampung Ayer. Built on stilts directly over the Brunei River, these ramshackle houses look especially strange when juxtaposed against Brunei's otherwise modern skyline. The residents of the villages supposedly pursue a "traditional" way of life, but considering they have electricity and satellite TV I'm not sure how traditional any of it really is. Nevertheless, the whole area resembled something out of the jungle towns I visited in Kalimantan and was an interesting departure from the otherwise-posh city.

It rained that afternoon so I took shelter at the local movie theater, which had a couple of English films on offer. For those of you who were wondering, Shutter is not a particularly good movie.

After the movie, I walked around the glitzy shopping mall for a while and did some people watching. If you've never seen headscarved women jockeying for position in a donut shop line, it's a hilarious sight.

One thing that has constantly amazed me here is how focused on Islam everything is. For instance, signs here are often written in Arabic, a language that no one here speaks, for the simple reason that Arabic is the language of Islam. And there must be five or six large mosques just in central BSB, all within a few blocks of one another. Supposedly as societies become richer and more "modern," the influence of religion tends to diminish, but that relationship seems lost on Brunei.

I caught a minibus to the airport that evening, satisfied that I had visited my first sultanate but otherwise bored to tears.