A weekend in Brunei

The canopy walk

Somehow I thought I was going to Sarawak for the weekend with my colleague and friend Anne but as it turned out we ended up in Brunei after going through Sarawak. Fortunately she was driving and knew where she was going as we were returning to the very small state of Temburong where she had taught 20 years before in a lovely little Primary school that we were able to visit.
 My knowledge of Brunei was or in fact still is very vague. I know that the Sultanates of Brunei were very powerful and rich for many centuries and their kingdom extended throughout Sabah and Sarawak but gradually they lost much of its territory to Sarawak when " The White Rajah" became too ambitious. It then became a British Protectorate in 1888 and was occupied by the Japanese during the Second World War. Eventually in 1959 when the Malaysian Federation was in it's transitional period, the Sultanate of Brunei managed to regain control of its internal affairs although Britain was still in control of the foreign affairs and defence until 1984 when they then gained complete independence. Sultanate Bolkeia has reigned since the age of 22 and in 2004 tentatively introduced a parliament and democratic reforms . The oil fields make it a very wealthy country and the population have the highest income per capita in Asia.

A river taxi

The state Mosque

A house in the water village decorated with horse-shoe crabs

 You can wake up now! Sorry I just wanted to find out for myself the background having been there and knowing nothing! Anyway, the small area of Temburong was really pretty. There is jungle everywhere and although mostly secondary forest there has been very little touched for years as there is no financial incentive to cut down the jungle and plant palm oil. There appears to be very little construction going on and it is obvious that the people enjoy a much higher standard of living than Sabah. We were here to do trekking in the jungle and then go to the Ulu National Park to climb the amazing canopy walk, which we did. We stayed in an Eco village on the banks of the River Temburong and got the boat upstream and came down  (slightly white) water rafting which was very serene but enjoyable.

The Temburong River

 The panic came when our hostel didn't accept credit cards, there were no banks in Temburong and we didn't have enough Malaysian ringitts to change and pay for our stay. We had to go to the capital which you can only get to by boat as it is quite separate geographically. Anyway it was a lovely 45 minute ride in the boat bus winding it's way through the river, mangrove swamps, open sea and then finally arriving at Bandar Seri Begawan. We quickly got to a bank and then just had time to have a quick look round the large water village, have a mango juice and get on the last river boat back at 5 pm. 
 We would have liked to do more treks but I'm afraid the Brunei dollar is too strong for the Malaysian ringitt and everything was very expensive for us. It is definitely not for budget travellers but it was well worth a visit.