Exploring Brunei

We spent a few days exploring Brunei. On the first day we took a water taxi to the water village, just across the river from the main CBD of Bendar Seri Begawan, the Capital of Brunei. The water village is the historical heart of the city and was there long before the modern city appeared, once housing over half the population of Brunei. Even now, despite the modern city that has grown up on the opposite river bank, it is still home to 20,000 people who enjoy the way of life there, and refuse to leave. It has its own police station, firestation, mosques, and many schools, all interconnected by vulnerable-looking board walks on stilts.

After taking the boat around the village, the taxi driver took us up river to some mangroves where we saw proboscis monkeys. These chaps are hilarious-looking, with massive droopy noses and like nothing we’d seen before. They’re only found in the mangroves of Northern Borneo and are fascinating to watch. As is often the case, these animals are in decline as so much of their habitat has been destroyed. Many populations are now trapped in small pockets of mangroves where there is no corridor to other regions, which makes them even more vulnerable to habitat loss, and will obviously have a more long-term detrimental effect on their genepool if they are forced into inbreeding.

We also visited the giant mall (apparently retail-therapy is the evening entertainment of choice in the absence of alcohol), food-markets and night-market, and the grand Mosque which is fairly symbolic of Brunei. It’s also decidedly photogenic, especially against the backdrop of a thunder storm or sunset, which I have to say are some of the best I’ve ever seen. Every one of our 5 evenings in Brunei, we have been lucky enough to experience an incredible sunset, and because of the nature of the clouds, you almost always seem to get a double effect where the sky opposite the sunset likes up in a reflective pink/orange glow, and this makes the whole sky appear to be on fire. Magical!