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Bandar Seri Begawan, Brunei Darussalam
4° 52' N 114° 56' E
Dec 10, 2006 08:56
Distance 6741km

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Other entries in Bandar Seri Begawan

Feeling Hot Hot Hot

Text written in: English (UK)

on fire is closer! stepped of the plane and was instantly hit with a humidity beyond belief! quickly got on to the air-cond bus in to the capital Bander, and all at the bargain price of $1BND about 33p bargain central!!! the airport is a fair few clicks out of town too.

so got in to the town, and checked in to the guesthouse had a look around the town didn't take long....not a great deal to see it's a very small capital the country population is only about 375k after all. But what's pretty neat is the huge water village on the opposite side of the town the largest water village in the world apparently ( in some guide books it says it's the Venice of the east!...righttttt, now I havn't been to Venice but it certainlty isn't that! anyway went over to the ''taxi rank'' and immedietly get offered I take you to see monkay, my house, my wife... she make you tea, I take you see sultan palace, anyway I just wanted to get across and at the price of $1BND so went across cutting under bridges weaving in and out of stilts, all good stuff.

next day highlight of the whole stopover in Brunei was the long boat ferry to the Ulu Temburong National Park, a tropical rainforest in Borneo. The journey took 50 mins and the scenery was like something out of an Indiana Jones film, cutting down river corridors, then vast open river ways, with rainforest all around as far as the eye could see all very spectacular. Just wished I had more time at the end to go further up river in smaller long boats to the canopy, will definately have to get back to a decent rainforest in the future.

All in all, Brunei was not what I was expecting...thought it would be built up like a mini Dubai or maybe Singapore??? but even so, what there is of it is good, but this was more than enough time for a stopover and eye opener to the land of the Sultan.

so next stop Brisbane!