April 28, Tuesday, Brunei

We began driving 45 minutes to the water village which houses 30,000 people.  A beautiful day with not as much humidity as yesterday in Kota Kinabulu, but only 5 degrees away from the equator.

Our boat



The mosque for the water village

Outside the home we visited that can hold 100 guests

They served sweets and a jelly like sweet rolled in a pandan leaf that tasted like the tea we had yesterday in Borneo.

A home on the water

Brunei is the 4th largest producer of natural gas in the world.  They also just found a new oil field.

Our guide said the homes at the water village are renovated every 3 years, but there was no evidence of that.  They are on concrete poles with wooden walkways.  Transportation is by boat.

We visited the old section.  We drove by the new section for the younger people.  The sultan wants to keep the culture so he built new ones.

Next we visited the Royal Regalia Building.  This impressive building houses the Sultan's chariot, regalia, and many presents he received at his coronation in 1968.  He is now 69 years old.  None of the gifts we saw were from Western Countries.  I noticed that many of the items represented the special handcrafts of the countries which I recognized as ones we saw there such as the silver decorated bowls.  There were many many swords all equisitely decorated.

This Sultan has his own 747 plane.  He is a pilot himself.  He also plays polo and golf.

The people of Brunei love and respect him because of his generosity.  The citizens who are Muslim must follow Sharia law.  A man can have 4 wives.  But the first wife must agree, and no one can have a better house or car.  The women we saw at the museum and the mosque wear a head scarf matching the gown, with jeweled broachs holding the ends of the scarf.  Their faces are not covered, just the hair.



This is the best photo you can take of the Sultan's palace, the largest palace in the world.  It is just over the tree line in the distance.  He also has golden domes.

His home has over 1,000 rooms and 250 bathrooms.  There is a whole subdivision of condos for the servants.  The grounds are beautiful from what we could see from the road.

Entrance gate to the palace

You can see the polo field from the road.  The horses live in air-conditioned stables. His home is surrounded by a river and mangroves.  Proboscus monkeys live in the forest but I couldn't see any with my binoculars.  The roofline of the palace reminds me of the Sydney opera house with swooping lines of white roofing. 

The women's section of the city mosque.

No building in Brunei may be higher than these minarets.

The outer courtyard.

the men's section.

Our last stop was this mosque.  The Sultan built it as a gift to the people.  The two golden domes,  4 minarets, and many small domes, are covered in a total of 45 tons of gold, 2mm thick.  David made the calculation.  It is worth about 1.5 billion dollars for the gold.  The smaller dome holds 1,500 women worshipers and the larger, 3,000 men.  We peeked inside and saw beautiful white marble and chandeliers.

On our way back to the ship it began to rain.

Today there was a 7.8 earthquake in Nepal.  Climbers in a base camp were killed by an avalanche.  Over 3,000 people were killed and many injured.  We are usually unaware of world affairs.  This was a tragedy that will have lasting effects.

We watched on TV The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel for the Elderly and Beautiful.  The onboard entertainment was the Liar's Club.  All the liars were really good. Our team won a bottle of champagne.