#Brunei Darussalam🇧🇳 is a small country in the north of #Borneo, surrounded by Malaysia and the ocean. Its 500k inhabitants are majority Muslim and I totally forgot it was #Ramadan so when I arrived on the red eye from Kuala Lumpur, I was told it’s illegal to eat and drink in public, but I could get takeout and eat in my room😬
The capital city #BandarSeriBegawan isn’t all that interesting. There’s a pretty mosque I wasn’t allowed to visit, the Energy Hub museum is all about oil and Brunei’s post oil plans, but the walk around #KampongAyer, a floating village of 30k people, was quite nice, albeit it being 34°C+. That’s probably one reason why it feels like a ghost town, the other being that lots of places have shorter opening times during Ramadan. On top of that the next day nothing happened until 2pm because of Friday prayers. But afterwards, one of the highlights was definitely seeing the penis nose, uhh, #proboscis monkeys on a speed boat ride though the mangrove jungle 🐒
Vast offshore oil reserves make this the 11th richest nation on Earth although, unsurprisingly, most of it goes into the pockets of Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah and his collection of 600+ Bentleys, 3 planes, 2 helicopters and I’m sure a bunch of other billionaire toys. And while he doesn’t allow free speech or a free press, the inhabitants do get free healthcare, free education, 0% income tax and investments in public infrastructure. A prime example being the 26km bridge connecting the main part to the Temburong region, with only ~500 inhabitants (and a spectacular national park). 3 days is more than enough to see everything though #mar2024
