Brunei

Looks nice, right? That's what we thought too. Growing up we always heard that the richest man in the world was not Michael Jackson or Bill Gates but some Sultan of Brunei. During our recent trip to Malaysia, we were so close to Brunei we figured we had to go. We knew Brunei wasn't Dubai but with all that oil wealth, it had to be close...right?

The mosques were certainly opulent and impressive but almost everything else in the country failed to meet our expectations.

The malls were not that exciting though the air conditioning was nice. The food was kind of blah. The bathrooms weren't very clean. We think our hotel had bed bugs (at least catching bed bugs in New York means you are still in New York!). Everything was expensive. Incredibly, we learned that there are only about 45 taxis in all Brunei. 15-20 are at the airport and another 15 our in other parts of the country. So, in central Brunei (Bandar Seri Bagawan) there are only about 10-15 taxis available. When we finally managed to see one, we wildly chased it down and blocked its escaped route only to pay $10 to go a few kilometers.
The highlight of our trip was riding a water taxi through the floating village. Actually to be more specific, the highlight of our trip was getting gas while riding the water taxi. See the grin on the driver's face below? That followed 10 minutes of fishing (no pun intended) bills out of the water. Let us explain. Need gas for your boat? Go to the floating Shell station and they will drop the nozzle down to your boat. After you have filled up, they drop a bucket down and you put the money in. Easy right? Well, our driver paid and as the bucket was hoisted up the bills went flying. The gas station attendant and driver yelled at each other for a second, trying to decide who was to blame. Then our driver proceeded to maneuver the boat around and used an oar to fish out the bills. Thankfully, soaked bills are less prone to flying out of the money bucket.

Just like Jackie O at Hyannis Port

The view of downtown Bandar Seri Bagawan

The Sultan's Palace

Brunei, we are glad we visited but we don't know if we will be making a return trip any time soon. Our visit started so well: flying Royal Brunei Air, the billboards in the airport with pictures of amazing destinations, a tour of the city at night. But then, something happened. The love affair ended...abruptly. And your final parting shot was the departure tax at the airport when we had already used all of our Brunei dollars. Good times, indeed.