So, Brunei, not quite the adventure that Palau was, but interesting in its own right. Brunei is famous for the immense wealth of its Sultan, but I knew little about it before we came. Quick lesson…Brunei is a tiny, independent country on the island of Borneo. Borneo is shared with Indonesia andMalaysia. It is a former British colony and is the longest continuous monarchy in the world. It is a Muslim country, so it is dry and very conservative (moderate by Middle Eastern terms, but conservative compared to the US). I have never been somewhere that has absolutely no bars or night clubs. Eerie. So, we had to find our own fun, which proved kind of difficult. There is not much to do in the capital city where we were. After we saw the mosque and took a tour of the floating city (the Venice of the Pacific…not so much) we were pretty much stuck wandering around “The Mall”. We did find great food from street vendors for next to nothing and we smoked some hookah at a Middle Eastern restaurant and ventured into the rainforest.
The first night my boss Mark, his roommate Dan and I went out to grab some food. We did not pull in until about 4, so we did not get off the ship until after 6. We found a night market that sold literally piles of food. We found a seat and proceeded to eat our faces off. The colored drinks in the containers below are called ABC. They are delicious fruity, creamy drinks that have all sorts of fun stuff floating in them…jello bits, fruit, corn. Yes, corn. The three of us ate until we were about to pop all for about $20.
Dan is about 6 foot 6, so watching him tower over the people of Brunei was pretty hilarious. They all thought it was funny too, there was a lot of pointing and laughing at his expense. He better get used to that.
The dinner was great and after we ate, we went to the hotel and crashed early.
We were not able to get rooms at the famous 6 star Empire Hotel because a Korean tour group had the whole thing booked. We did have to drop OPS off the next morning so he could make his tee time, so Dan and I took that opportunity to wander around and have breakfast there. It is amazing! I am so sad I was not able to stay at this place. Talk about over-compensating for something. This hotel was all marble, gold, pillars, plate glass windows, over done in every way! It was awesome. Here I am in front of the man-made lagoon. The white umbrellas behind me are where we ate breakfast from a great Asian buffet. Steamed rice, miso soup, rice porridge, corned beef, bacon and kim chi. Yummy!
Dan and I then went and took a taxi tour of the capital of Brunei. There is a mosque built by the Sultan in the center of the city that is amazing. We were not able to enter it, but we could take pictures of the outside.
We then hopped on a water taxi and took a tour of the water village. It is an entire city inhabited by over 300,000 people all built on stilts. Anyone who has been to southeast Asia would be under the same assumption that I was that they are all shacks on stilts. Not so much. They may not look so nice on the outside, but inside they have flat screen tv’s, 300 cable channels, running water, electricity, 15 boats, 3 cars parked on the shore, houses on land they call their “Weekend house” and all the luxuries you and I have. They see themselves as the more sophisticated of the people of Brunei and most work for the government. It was pretty enlightening. The guy who gave us the tour showed us inside his house where 25 members of his extended family live in complete comfort. Here I am on his porch.
The rest of the day was spent trying to find something else to do. The city has an American style mall that we entertained ourselves with. We got massages, ate good food, checked our email, drank bubble tea and bought some souvenirs.
The next day was duty, so it was no fun.
Yesterday we went on a tour into the rainforest of Borneo. We took a fast boat up the river about 50 miles and got on long boats into a National Forest. The great thing about Brunei’s rainforest is that they are so wealthy from the oil they sell, that they have never needed to de-forest their rainforest. It is one of the best preserved forests in the world. I felt a little like I was going up the Congo in Heart of Darkness as the river got narrower and narrower and the greenery got more and more dense. That is until we pulled into a random town right on the river to stop and take a break. We had seen so civilization for an hour and here we are surrounded by apartments with satellite dishes, cellphones with coverage, nice cars, it was crazy.
We got on long boats and went further up the river to a canopy tower. We climbed over 2000 stairs straight up the mountain until we got to a metal tower with a million more stairs. At the top of the tower there were bridges that linked to other towers that were high above the rainforest canopy. I am not afraid of heights, but holy moly, it was high and the knuckleheads we were with thought it was HILARIOUS to sway the towers. Not so funny. Please note the massive amounts of sweat…it was a little hot and humid in the rainforest.
After the climb up we had to climb down, which was a good time, I only fell once. Then we went to a waterfall. As most of you know, I have a slight obsession with waterfalls, so this was my favorite part of the trip.
Then we went back down the river and hopped in rafts. The were no real rapids, so we quickly got bored with rowing after about 10 minutes and jumped in a floated the rest of the way down.
Next stop…The Gulf. Who knows then next time I will actually be on land. I will be going to the carrier, USS Lincoln, at some point for about a month. That should be fun. For those of you who know Navy stuff, I am now sitting TAO U/I and should have a board in July, which will give me about a month in the chair before I leave. Going to DESRON staff should help me learn my surface stuff, since that is my weakness. I miss AAWC though, TAO doesn’t get to do anything really... (sorry, half of you have NO IDEA what I just said).
Hope all is well with everyone!
Love you all!
Linda
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