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With Adrian away I decided to book myself a ship's tour for today in Brunei. We're only here for a few hours, 11 am-4pm. I chose a mangrove tour with monkeys and a visit to the houses on stilts. The tour didn't begin until 11:45 am - after about 45 minute ride to get to the boat dock, we started our river adventure. Somehow the shaded seat I chose was in the sun as soon as the boat left shore. We were all wearing lifejackets at the beginning but by about halfway through everyone had taken off because of the heat.
Brunei's leader is the Sultan of Brunei. Our guide spent a lot of time extolling the virtues of the country and the Sultan himself. They include no property, sales or income taxes, free education, free medical care, subsidized electricity and water and so on. Brunei's, or rather the Sultan's income comes from oil and gas and they have another 200 years or more of supply. The country also has gold deposits but it's saving these to develop after the oil and gas are depleted. I was thinking we should consider a longer visit when our guide mentioned there's no smoking or drinking allowed here. I bet eliminating those two vices makes free healthcare a whole lot cheaper to provide.
The Sultan is well loved but he does indulge himself in a 1700+ room presidential palace, with a second palace built and waiting for the next sultan and a quite fantastic car collection 600 Rolls Royce alone, some gold plated some with diamonds.
The tour of the mangroves was meant to show us a long nosed monkey of some fame here - while we did spot a couple of monkeys they were too far away for photos.
On the mangrove cruise we also passed by a number of very swanky houses. But many people still live in the traditional stilt houses - now with modern sewer system pipes, satellite dishes, and so on. The groups of houses are interconnected by walkways on stilts each area has its own school and so on. We visited one home where we had some snacks and also got to see inside the house itself. Very elaborate and quite large to accommodate large family. The snacks were delicious, some savory and some sweet, no real idea what they were lovely anyway.
Brunei is 7 times as big as Singapore by land mass but only 500,000 people. 70% of the land remains undeveloped, mostly rainforest. It's a muslim country so I was pretty sweaty by the time we got back to the ship - 32+ degrees here and the seats in the bus were plastic coated.
Brunei's leader is the Sultan of Brunei. Our guide spent a lot of time extolling the virtues of the country and the Sultan himself. They include no property, sales or income taxes, free education, free medical care, subsidized electricity and water and so on. Brunei's, or rather the Sultan's income comes from oil and gas and they have another 200 years or more of supply. The country also has gold deposits but it's saving these to develop after the oil and gas are depleted. I was thinking we should consider a longer visit when our guide mentioned there's no smoking or drinking allowed here. I bet eliminating those two vices makes free healthcare a whole lot cheaper to provide.
The Sultan is well loved but he does indulge himself in a 1700+ room presidential palace, with a second palace built and waiting for the next sultan and a quite fantastic car collection 600 Rolls Royce alone, some gold plated some with diamonds.
The tour of the mangroves was meant to show us a long nosed monkey of some fame here - while we did spot a couple of monkeys they were too far away for photos.
On the mangrove cruise we also passed by a number of very swanky houses. But many people still live in the traditional stilt houses - now with modern sewer system pipes, satellite dishes, and so on. The groups of houses are interconnected by walkways on stilts each area has its own school and so on. We visited one home where we had some snacks and also got to see inside the house itself. Very elaborate and quite large to accommodate large family. The snacks were delicious, some savory and some sweet, no real idea what they were lovely anyway.
Brunei is 7 times as big as Singapore by land mass but only 500,000 people. 70% of the land remains undeveloped, mostly rainforest. It's a muslim country so I was pretty sweaty by the time we got back to the ship - 32+ degrees here and the seats in the bus were plastic coated.
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