Four to the Floor

6 months ago, all I knew of Brunei was that it's leader - the Sultan of Brunei was once the richest man in the world before Bill Gates overtook him, and then a few others too.

3 months ago, I knew that they had some great theme park built by the Sultan for the people as a gift and that's about it.

So when landed at Brunei Darrusalem (its full name), I was pretty unsure how I'd be spending my 2 days. Luckily, the $1 bus ride dropped me in Begawan in front of the worlds friendliest tourist information guy - Danny. He let me know all there was to do and also offered a tour around the cities floating village which I duly accepted.

First I went to check in at my hostel, which seemed abandoned - so I locked my bag and decided to come back later. A visit to the Royal museum allowed me to see the most bizzarre royal carriage ever - a cross between stephensons rocket and chitty chitty bang bang - the cart is pulled and pushed along by 48 men. Sadly no photography means you'll have to go for yourself to see it!

Then on to the mosque - usually known as the 'mini Taj Mahal'. However on the way I was given my biggest scare of my entire travels... as the sky had greyed, a bolt of lightening struck a spire around 10metres from where I was standing - the noise was like artillary being fired right over my nog - I near on hit the deck! As the traffic chuckled at my nervous burst, I gathered myself and hoped that my pants wouldn't need changing.

At 4pm I met with Danny for the river tour. From the boat we could see the many palaces belonging to the Sultan - he seems to build them for pretty much all his friends and family - his one has over 1200 rooms and employs over 2000 staff to keep it running. He's also pretty much the entire political cabinet along with being fully trained to fly his own private 747 and Black Hawk Helicopter (a man with money AND his priorities sorted out!). As he and the country are so wealthy, there is no tax, medical care is all free, education too - and petrol is 50c a litre - around 20p. Except... his wealth is $14.3 billion... surely his people could have slightly better accomodation than this?!

Into the village itself, the houses are surprisingly well equipped - sat TV, Playstations and DVD players the norm. We landed on one of the board walks and was invited to visit a house. Through a hatch in the floor we were shown into the fathers quarters - a boat workshop where he makes his living.

The boat then cruised around showing us the large mosques, schools and even fire-stations built on the water. As I said goodbye to Danny I was starting to see how friendly the local people were - quite surprising as this is adverse to how I'd found Malaysia previously.

I went to play some Badminton at the hall next to my hostel, where I played, was heavily beaten by a guy called Rosle. His comiserating smiles were okay as he offered me a ride to the Jeradong playground (the theme park I'd been looking forward to visiting). Nick had already told me that half the rides were closed, although I thought maybe that had just been for maintenance. In reality, literally half of the park was shut. Sadly, the half with all the good rides in. So I paid my dollars entrance fee and stayed as open minded as possible.

Remember the first time you visited a theme park as a kid? You had a great time, with the only negative being the boring queues for the attractions. You, as well as I, would have wished to have a theme park to yourself for a day. This is one wish that I can assure you - is no fun at all. However, I did notice myself laughing with disbelief at how much of a failure such an extravagent park could be - though for a country of only 375,000 inhabitants, it's not really a surprise to see this theme park empty - along with the roads and city centre also.

Rosle, offered me dinner at his families house, which after an absolutely dire KFC earlier in the day, I was only too pleased to accept.

I took a ride home on a speed boat - once again through the floating village. For $1, I got to sit at the front of the boat while we sped through the darkened still waters. I found a large grin on my moosh and realised I got my theme park ride eventually - if not actually in a theme park.

So, on my 2nd and final day in Brunei, I embarked on a little adventure. A climb up 487 steps to one of Bruneis highest peaks. The sky was blue, the temperature was hot - and by the time I reached the summit, the huge ants crawling the rainforst floor, were avoiding the dozens of sweat droplets being fired off of me.

I took some time to chill in the afternoon, before getting trapped indoors as the heavens opened. Wet, I arrived at the bus station and moseyed back to the airport, and back toward Sydney, Australia.