Gold Digging in Brunei

So we're both young free and single. We were also heading to a place that would be full of rich people, maybe even young single men! Brunei has a lot of oil and the Sultan is one of the wealthiest in the world - he's worth 54 billion dollars (now that is a lot of money). The only down fall was that the whole country has no bars or pubs. In fact Brunei has an alcohol ban, so how on earth does anyone get chatted up?!

Worried that it was too expensive for our budget, I was pleasantly surprised that it wasn't ridiculously so. I was expecting magnificent mosques and skyscrapers looming over the city.

Brunei, what an anomaly.

It has the potential to be built up and bustling. It was very quiet, had no major buildings except the mosques and it was a little deserted. There were only a few small shopping centres, some coffee houses and a handful of hotels / guest houses.

Unlike the rest of Asia, the roads weren't dirt tracks, they were paved, (this is now how I tell how westernised a country is by the paved roads, trust me it's a novelty!)

It had a beautiful mosque called the Omar Ali Saifuddien Mosque, which was golden domed. We went to see it at night, when it has been lit up and appears to float like an apparition over the lagoon it's next to.

Another mosque worth visiting is the Jame'asr Hassanal Bolkiah Mosque, which is just out of town and is the largest in Brunei.

I was intrigued about the Sultan. Surely if he has all these grand mosques and is one of the richest men then he must have a splendid palace. We attempted to visit it, but we couldn't see it for the trees.

We did see the other side of Brunei, the poorer side, as in the Fishing Village, which has been there for centuries (and looks like it has too). It seems every country in Asia has a fishing village somewhere. This village in the harbour of the city is basically a floating town, the second largest town in Brunei after the capital. It even has it's own fire station and schools.

All in all the country wasn't as expensive as I thought it would be. The people are incredibly friendly. Lynsey and I even managed to hitchhike (that's a lie we didn't, we got lost and a family took pity on us and dropped us back at our hotel! There aren't any taxis lingering around, so we were massively grateful.)

We had a relaxing few days here. We even watched a Tug of War competition in the city's stadium, which was rather random. We even managed to have a look at some muscly young men! So this is where you pick them up!

I felt as though we had a great few days in this peaceful place. Even if I didn't get to actually see the palace or get a proper feel for Brunei's wealth ... I did however hear that the Sultan was divorcing one of his wives .. She was previously a reporter, which I thought was very interesting. Apparently he'd also divorced one who was an air stewardess. I started thinking Lynsey worked for BA and I worked for a magazine... maybe, just maybe, we should hand in our CVs .....