3324 The missile frigate (or destroyer) abd tge dry dock building in the Naval Shipyard.
3334 The Brunei greeting on the pier.
3351 The Royal Regalia Building in Bandar.
3374 Fresh fish for sale in the Tamu Market. The black dots you see on the fish are flies.
Oct 30 – At Sea. Today was a normal restful sea day except for two items. One was the close out of all the ship's Alaska gear. It was advertised as a 50% off sale but in reality when they got done with the markdowns it was 75% off. Diana bought a few things and I bought a t-shirt and windbreaker style jacket. I normally don't even go look at these sales but I was walking past it and the jacket caught my eye. It was marked down from $92 to $29.99 and I got it for 75% less than that. The sale was at poolside on the Lido amidships. It just happened that they were giving away fresh coconuts just down the way as well. As you stopped by one of the deck stewards used his machete to lop the top off a coconut, another steward put in a straw any you were set to go. The coconuts were very cold and the coconut milk was very refreshing.
Chris Michaels was back in the Spotlight slot and a group of two men and a woman who call themselves Incognito sang in the main show. They did a mix of opera, show tunes, film and pop. It was enjoyable but being British they just had to include a song by Andrew Lloyd Weber. Ugh!! His stuff is so over used I am completely done with him.
Oct 31 -- Muara, Brunei Darussalam. Brunei, officially the Nation of Brunei, the Abode of Peace, is a sovereign state located on the north coast of the island of Borneo, in Southeast Asia. Apart from its coastline with the South China Sea, it is surrounded by the state of Sarawak, Malaysia, and it is separated into two parts by the Sarawak district of Limbang. It is the only sovereign state completely on the island of Borneo, with the remainder of the island forming parts of Malaysia and Indonesia. Brunei has about 400,000 people
At the peak of Bruneian Empire, Sultan Bolkiah (1485–1528) had control over the northern regions of Borneo, including modern-day Sarawak and Sabah, as well as the Sulu archipelago off the northeast tip of Borneo, Seludong (modern day Manila), and the islands off the northwest tip of Borneo. Magellan's Expedition came here in 1521. The Bruneian Empire began to decline, reaching its modern shape in 1890. Brunei became a British protectorate in 1888. After the Japanese occupation during World War II, a new constitution was written in 1959. In 1962, there was a small armed rebellion against the monarchy that was ended with the help of the British. Brunei regained its independence from the United Kingdom in January 1984. Economic growth during the 1970s and 1990s has transformed Brunei into a newly industrialized country. Yearly growth in the economy averaged 56% from 1999 to 2008. The IMF has said that Brunei was one of two countries (the other being Libya) with their public debt at 0% of the national GDP. Forbes also ranks Brunei as the fifth richest nation out of 182 nations due to its extensive petroleum and natural gas fields. Muara, the city where we're docked, contains the country's only deep-water port and is the Malay word for estuary.
Welcome to the home of the man who was the richest in the world before being bumped down to third. Of course that's the Sultan of Brunei, His Majesty Haji Hassan al Bolkiah. He's the same age as I am. It's an Islamic country but he doesn't have any problems with rebels because his people love him. They should. If he wanted to be the richest man in the world he could get the title back very quickly. Brunei is rich in oil and gas and it all belongs to the sultan. It's his to keep if he wants to. However, when he was named sultan at the abdication of his father, in his first speech he promised to use the family's wealth to help his people and his country, a promise he has kept in spades.
Wanna buy a house? The land belongs to the sultan but you can have some. He'll pay for half your house and give you an interest free 30-year loan for the other half. Need a car? No problem. Cars are not taxed like most Asian countries. You can buy a Mercedes Benz here for less than your neighbors in Malaysia can buy a Toyota Corolla. Sick? Oh no, it costs a dollar to go to the doctor and anything that results from that visit is free, meds etc. Need some sort of 'oscapy', colon or otherwise? No problem, it's free. What, you say the doctors in Brunei can't treat what you have? No problem, the government's medical travel agent will make all the reservations needed for you to go wherever you need to, Germany, UK, USA, Japan, to get the treatment you need for as long as you need it. A cousin of our tour guide got some rare cancer that had to be treated in Germany. They sent him there and got him treatment for 2 years, transportation, hotels, doctors, food and an allowance all paid not only for him but for a relative to go with him.
Gas is subsidized, costs them about $1.32US per gallon. Don't have a job? No problem. Now here's where you figure out that the Sultan is kind but firm and very smart. There are no unemployment payments in Brunei. It's viewed as immoral to pay someone for doing nothing. Gosh, what a concept. Wait a minute, where have I heard that before. Oh, yes now I remember. It's in the Scriptures, "Those who do not work, should not eat." What they do is send the person to a school, academic or trade, and when they graduate the government (read as the sultan) gets them a job and they have to take it. Go Sultan!! Food is subsidized as is anything else that's a necessity.
Of course anyone with needs, the handicapped, the elderly, etc. is totally provided for but the handicap has to be real, not one of these new 'excuse' handicaps that seem to be creeping into the psych professions. Nothing seems to be anyone's personal fault or weakness anymore, everything's a disease or syndrome or something our society has to throw shovels full of money at because the poor individual is powerless in the face of his or her problem. I'm sorry did I use the "P" word, gosh I'm so sorry. I meant to say "challenge". What a load of guano.
Our guide told us that no one walks anywhere here and sure enough the sidewalks were empty except for road workers and cleaners. Everyone drives no matter how short the trip might be. There are no motorbikes and very few motorcycles. I didn't see any. Our guide said that they are for recreational use only no one would drive them to work. Her question was, "Why would you want to be out in the heat and humidity when you could be in a comfortable air-conditioned car?" What I found surprising is that most Bruneians own at least 2 cars. You say that's not unusual? She didn't mean 2 cars per family; she meant 2 cars per person. The average family of 4-5 owns 6-12 cars. As evidence she pointed to the houses we were passing. Garages here are a rarity most people prefer carports. She told us that almost everyone was at work or school during this time and yet look at all the cars parked at the houses we pass. She was right. Almost every house had 2-4 cars parked outside under a carport that would easily hold 3-4 more cars. This is a seriously rich country. No wonder the Islamic radicals can't get any traction here.
They have a guest worker program and it's strictly 3 years and you go back home and apply to come again. Of course, they make exceptions for anyone they really need but the sultan is not importing welfare recipients.
Political Science Note: Our government should take notice!! The problem with indiscriminate immigration is that you not only get to bear the cost of nonproductive people who should be someone else's problem but a large criminal element comes with it. Just check the statistics in California on the percentage of people in prison who are illegal aliens if you doubt that. That genius Jimmy Carter imported a huge number of convicted felons from Cuba with his mishandling of the Mariel Boat Lift fiasco. Castro, being old but still outsmarting the USA, emptied his prisons, put the criminals on boats and sent them to the USA. Our not-so-genius government, ably abetted by the gullible media, let them all in for 'compassionate' reasons. Where was the compassionate regard for US citizens? I thought one of our constitutional rights was to 'domestic tranquility'. How do you insure that by allowing uncontrolled access to our borders to people who are criminals and intend to stay? Much less welcome them with open arms. Pogo was right. "We have met the enemy and he is us."
The sail in to Muara is short but interesting. We sailed past most of Brunei's navy on the way in. They have several missile frigates, or at least a ship about the size of what used to be called a frigate. They could have been some class of destroyer but they seemed a little larger than that. Two of them were tied up near the covered dry-dock area. I don't think I've ever seen such a clean and orderly shipyard area. One has what looks like a 4-inch gun turret forward, the other does not. Both have four missile tubes mounted amidships. Two mounted slanting to each side at about 30˚. They were very symmetrical and had identical caps on each end, I'm not sure if they fire upwards for missiles or downwards for torpedoes. Only one each direction was loaded and based on the configuration I believe they are missiles. To facilitate reloading it appears that the missile is already in a capped sleeve and they just have to remove the empty sleeve and insert a new one to fire again. The empty side of each was just an empty hole the loaded side had a cylindrical sleeve extending from both sides.
They had a welcoming committee of men and women in traditional garb lined up on either side of the gangway to greet us. We got a beaded necklace called a Lital. It was made by the Rungus women of the longhouses of Kudat in the northern part of Sabah. It has dual beaded strings with decorative beadwork connecting them at places. They met in a beaded rectangle with a bead fringe.
Then it was on to the bus for the short drive into and a tour of Bandar, the capital city. Last time we were here we went out to visit the Dayak people. We didn't know it at the time but they had only given up headhunting a couple of years earlier. We visited them in their longhouse and were entertained by the family and hosted by the chief. Today we will be visiting a former headhunter tribe's cultural center. It will be a different experience for sure but maybe more informative as they have a professional curator.
But our first stop is at the Royal Regalia Building where the sultan stores the implements of his coronation and his Silver Jubilee celebration. No pictures were allowed inside. They had his inaugural chariot on display. 24 men pulled it and 24 men pushed it, all from the army. In front and behind them marched formations of 24 police. There's an area recounting the sultan's life from birth to the present day. Brunei was a former British possession and they still have a close relationship. The sultan was educated in England and served in each of the British armed forces. He flies his own helicopter and jet plus he can drive any vehicle in his army and pilot any ship in his navy. They have his uniforms from all the British services on display in a case.
They have a room with a replica of the throne on which he sat during his installation. It includes the actual Sultan's Crown, the Raja Isten Crown, the Kris (a Malaysian knife), his sword, the ceremonial mace and the religious mace as well as other items. All these items are gold and encrusted with jewels.
The Silver Jubilee Gallery has gifts from countries around the world that were received on this occasion. Some were very ornate and expensive others symbolic and made from more basic materials, unadorned wood carvings for example. It was a nice visit and the exhibits were informative and well organized.
Our next stop was the Tamu Market on the Kianggeh River, Bandar's Traditional Market. To make things easy for everyone the market is accessible by car and boat. It has some open pavilions but most of the market seemed to be shaded by large colorful umbrellas. The vegetable and fruit stands were mostly still open but many of the stands were closed. Bruneians shop early in the morning and by noon customers are few and far between. There were a couple of seafood vendors open but I have to tell you that the unpackaged fresh fish were covered in flies. Since you're going to cook it that's probably not a serious problem but for Westerners it's a bit unsightly. Some of the fish vendors have wrapped their wares.
One product sold by the seafood vendors was a bit odd. It looked like a small cannonball and was definitely wrapped in plastic. Our guide told us they were balls of fish paste that locals use to make fish broth for soup. She says that they're also used for pranks. You buy one and leave it in someone's car. After it sets in the sun for a while the stench that greets you when you return is overwhelming. So much for the Bruneian sense of humor.
There were only about 4 local ladies shopping in the market. Most were picking up some fruit, which looked great by the way. I saw at least five varieties of bananas, right down to those tiny finger sized super-sweet ones. They have regular and sweet potatoes (Our guide told us that potatoes are used mainly in soup), many kinds of peppers, mostly slim and very hot looking (The ones I recognized were all hot varieties), green beans, okra, long slender eggplant, carrots, chimoya, leeks, winter melon, chestnuts and cabbage. No bell peppers anywhere, yippee!! They're the scourge of American cuisine. There was not a wide variety of fruit available here (this market). Bananas were prevalent but there are also limes, melons, papaya, mango and tomatoes. I didn't see any onions but there was garlic, fresh ginger, and a few other roots items I didn't recognize.
The fish products were hard to recognize. Most were dried, crumbled, shredded or treated in other ways that make them difficult to identify. They had large plastic tubs piled high with things that looked and smelled like dried seafood. Some of the fish had been cleaned, butterflied and dried; at least those were recognizable as fish.
We took the bus from the market to Bandar's main dock on the Brunei River. From there we are boarding a boat to transfer to Kampong Ayer, Bandar's Water Village. On the way, we will detour to the Mangrove area along the river to see if we cans spot any Proboscis monkeys. That's right, Nose Monkeys and do they ever have one. They would put Jimmy Durante to shame. We actually did spot a few of them in one area but they were a long way off under difficult lighting conditions. I did manage to get some images but they won't be good. To see them in the pictures I'll have to crop out very small areas and blow them up. Detail will definitely not be there.
Then it was back toward the city. Our boat is a 35-foot long covered, wooden boat driven by an outboard motor. Kampong Ayer covers both sides of the Brunei River near Bandar. About 30,000 people live in the water village. It's a traditional lifestyle in many southeastern Asian countries. Thailand has many of them. Few that I've seen are equipped like this one. They have electricity, water and sewer service. Many of the homes are air-conditioned. Of course, each side of the river has its own mosque and there are several schools for the children. The residents have direct water access to the Tamu market as it's just up from where the Kedayan River meets the Brunei River. Kampong Ayer covers both sides of the mouth of the Kedayan and the bank of the Brunei River directly across from it. They have much easier access than the people who live on the land.
Our boat wondered through the channels in the water city. Many of the houses have numerous potted plants on their verandas. Apparently plant lover like the water city too. There are public piers scattered all throughout the city. They have covered areas as the end and stairs down to the water. Public transit boats and water taxis will pick you up there. Of course, with a water taxi you have the option to have him take you directly home if your house has stairs up from the water as many do.
I saw a man fishing with a net off the front veranda of his home. I don't know exactly what he caught but when he pulled the net up there was about half a bushel of something in it. That's pretty cool, need dinner, no problem!
We passed the Kampong Ayer firehouse, or should I say fireboathouse (seems like if firehouse is one word and boathouse is one word, fireboathouse should be one word too but Word spellcheck doesn't like it. Oh well, what do they know.). It has three bays but they were all empty except for a small red RIB Rigid Inflatable Boat) that probably serves as an ambulance or rescue craft.
We stopped at a water village house and climbed the stairs to the large living room. Tables had been set up with snacks and tea. As with most Eastern Asian cultures, the Bruneians don't have much of a taste for sweet. Just like Indonesia, Japan, China, Viet Nam and Cambodia their idea of sweet is about the level of red bean paste. Which I like, but I wouldn't really call it sweet. They had Kelupis, glutinous rice (aka Sweet Rice) with coconut milk steamed in a large leaf wrapper, perhaps banana. They also had glutinous rice steamed in a bamboo leaf wrapped spirally and shaped like a cone. You unpin it, they put in a small sliver of wood to hold it closed, and unwind the leaf as you eat the rice. They had tiny doughnut shaped Ardam that were deep-fried to a golden brown. They look sweet but they are not. They had little cakes baked in a mold that gave them a segmented look like a pumpkin. Also not sweet. The sweetest thing they served was Selurut, steamed rice flour with sugar & egg. It was a little too puffy to be considered custard and it was about as sweet as an egg omelet. In other words, not very. Don't misunderstand, I enjoyed them all but since they looked and sounded sweet I was a little let down by the taste.
After the snack break, we boarded our boat and headed back to the Bandar Pier. A short walk later we were on the bus and headed for a drive by of the Sultan Omar Ali Saifuddien Mosque that's in downtown Bandar. It's done in gold, white and concrete gray. It's an attractive building but no particular pop.
From downtown, we drove out to the Royal Palace, Istana Nurul Iman. It has an attractive black and gold front gate, actually gates because there are two. While we were there, several cars came and went and it didn't seem to matter which gate they used to do it. There were two soldiers posted inside the gates and a policeman on the outside. Each of the gates has a round device attached to it the center. On the right gate of each side is the royal seal and on the left side a red outline of Brunei. In the marble wall that's between the gates, they've affixed a large golden copy of the sultan's personal seal. The policeman was very friendly and allowed us to get off the bus to take pictures of the gates and as much as we could see from the driveway. They are claiming that the sultan's palace is the largest palace in the world, a title that the Brits just claimed for Windsor Castle when we were there this spring. I'm sure that each claim is accurate you just have to know what they base it on, square footage, number of rooms or what.
Just about the time that our bus was to be back to pick us up the policeman got a radio message telling him that the sultan was due home in about 20 minutes. Our guide asked if we could stay and the policeman said yes. When our bus started to pull in to get us the policeman waived him off and told him to go around again. The driver looked a little dubious but away he went. Our guide had told us earlier that the sultan drives his own Mercedes Benz SUV so I guess we'll see if that was true.
Just after the message came on the policeman's radio, a man in a dark blue or black uniform came out of the gate to take up a position near the gate. I believe he's a military man.
About 10 minutes later the far gate started to open and as it was still opening a motorcycle policeman with blue light flashing made a high speed turn in to the drive way and through the gate. I'd guess he was doing about 50mph or more. He was followed closely by a second and then a third. Next came a MB SUV and as promised, there was the sultan driving the car and waiving at us. Apparently, he is a friendly guy. Behind him came a MB sedan with a couple of women in the back (our guide told us later it was two of his wives). They were followed by a black Caddy Escalade that I'm sure carried several security men. This was a nice bonus to the day.
Our guide was so excited that you'd have thought she was 5 years old and just saw Santa Claus. She was grinning, clapping, and saying, "He waived to us! He waived to us!" It was refreshing to see such joy in an individual. I don't know about the rest of the population but we were traveling with one Bruneian that loves the sultan.
It was just getting dark when we arrived at the Jame'asr Hassanil Bolkiah Mosque a little outside the city. It was recently built by the current sultan. It's a much prettier structure than the downtown mosque and the colors of the sky produced by sunset just made it prettier. It has 29 golden domes because the current sultan is the 29th.
After the visit to the mosque, we headed back to the ship. No entertainer tonight, instead we have a Big Screen Movie, Psycho. I have a new appreciation for that movie after seeing Hitch, the story of how the movie was made and the risks and trials Alfred Hitchcock endured during the process.
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