Sunday, December 16, 2012

Brunei

Ummm, not my most favorite place in the world and this where a cruise is great, if you really don't like somewhere well its generally only 1 day.  Of course the day didn't start well when Derek was sent back to change from his long shorts & T Shirt (which we wore in Egypt, Turkey and Palatine last year) into long pants and long sleeved shirt (the only ones he had where those we wore to dinner) so him and a lot of men didn't start the day very happy as it was extremely hot and humid.

To be honest I thought it was a country paved in gold and expected it to be much cleaner, nicer, modern than what it ended up being.  I was shocked by the devastation of the forests which one of tours we did  to see the wild Borneo monkeys in their natural habitat - but alas the stench of the polluted water ways was over powering and of course there were hundreds of boats doing the same thing to get a small glimpse of 1 loan monkey which just made me so sad.  As people pushed each other to try and get a shot of it where only a few trees remain with industry right behind them and the junk and remains of construction all around or the giant monitor lizards on the shores climbing over rubbish was just so sad.  I was so saddened by this that I elected not to take photos.

Of course the Palace is Gold, the Mosques where Gold, the Museum  was dripping in Gold to be frank there is no hiding the wealth in these areas and yes there were some lovely streets but overall these where few and far between.

I am always gob smacked when on tours they take you to places like the local markets which just about made everyone vomit the stench was so bad.

The people though love to tell you they don't pay taxes, they get free education, free hospitals, only pay 30 cents a litre for petrol and can apply once married with a child for a free house (which takes 9 years to get) so they are truly conned even though its sprinkling gold dust and I would have thought with a population of less than 400,000 the generosity would have be further extended as most people seemed to be living in poverty, in areas not much better than Egypt.  No more sorry didn't like it, wouldn't go back but glad I saw.

The Brunei Album

To experience the water village check out our video Brunei Water Village

No comments:

Post a Comment