Brunei was never on our itinerary until we decided to travel via bus from Kuching – Kota Kinalabu via Miri. When we looked into it, we realised that we would be passing through on the only three days in a year that the Sultan opens his palace to the public so it was a once in a lifetime opportunity!
We stayed in a nice Airbnb and we were glad as there wasn’t a lot to do here, especially because it was Eid and most things were closed, so we spent alot of time on the sofa watching TV. When we first arrived, we had a walk down by the waterfront and got some lunch. Later, we had a walk to the mosque which was impressive.
The next day we had a relaxed morning, had a walk around the city and later on met Mel who is a tour guide reccomended to us by a guy we met in Kuching. We arranged to do a boat tour of the river and the water village. Two Chinese girls, Flora and Alivera, that were staying at our Airbnb joined us and one German guy, Thomas. The boat tour was really good, we saw lots of proboscis monkeys in the trees along the way. We were also shown around the water village and then got off the boat and were actually taken into two of the houses. As it was Eid, the families had little buffets/sweets and drinks for us. We were actually in one of the houses for nearly two hours which we thought was a bit awkward, but they didn’t seem to mind. On the way back, it chucked it down raining so there was six of us in this small boat under one umbrella!
The next day was the big day. We were going to the biggest residential palace in the world, to meet the Sultan and the Queen. Once we got there, we had a buffet which was amazing- beef, chicken, lamb, prawns and then cakes aswell. It was only 8am (best breakfast ever)! We were split up at this point as the Men meet the Sultan/shake his hand and the Women meet the Queen. Kerry was with the two Chinese girls from the Airbnb and a German girl we met and luckily we saw Mel with Thomas from the day before so Jonho had someone to queue with aswell. We queued for a couple of hours and the Sultan and Queen were just shaking hands with most people and didn’t speak to them. However, the Queen had a conversation with Kerry. She asked where she’s from, who she’s with, what we are doing here and welcomed us to Brunei. Kerry was quite smug about this. We also both got a gift (a cake) and a card off them. In the evening, we had a walk around the water village and watched more TV.. oh and Kerry ended up having a photo shoot with the two Chinese girls from the Airbnb.
Kerry and Jonho's Travels 