Way back in the 80’s and early 90’s, before the internet, before anyone had heard of Bill Gates or that chap that owns Facebook, the school yard conversation topic of World’s Richest Man invariably ended when someone brought up one name. A man who was surrounded in mystery and magic, did he even exist? He couldn’t be real. That man was the Sultan of Brunei. How many 10 year olds know where Brunei is? Or what a Sultan is?
This one didn’t but he does now.
As part of our recent 3 week trip to Borneo we made a reasonably last minute decision to spend 3 nights in Brunei, a tiny oil rich country surrounded by Malaysia and the ocean – it turned out to be a great decision. Unlike most of Asia, Brunei and its capital Bandar Seri Begawan (BSB) were very clean and uncrowded. BSB has a population of just 80,000 people, of those 30,000 live in houses on stilts on the water. There are apparently 13 water schools and a bunch of water fire stations too, the set up was quite extraordinary. One night we took an hour long speedboat ride and were lucky enough to catch one of my all time top 5 sunsets (the 3rd photo shows it best – this is straight out of the camera with ZERO post processing applied).
That guy on the right was having dinner with the Sultan that night (we assumed)
One of the positives of having more oil than you know what to do with is that you don’t need to resort to deforestation to put food on your nation’s table. Brunei still has plenty of untouched virgin rain forest which is becoming an increasingly rare thing in Asia these days.
Big forests lead to BIG centipedes. This one was a monster.
Here’s a few more from around the place.
We weren’t able to go inside this mosque due to Ramadan, it was stunning from the outside.
Traditional Iban longhouse.
You could make a pretty strong case that the Sultan is a dictator. He was never elected to office and has full execitive authority (including emergency powers), he even changed to constitution a few years ago to include a clause which decreed that the Sultan can do no wrong in his personal or professional life – or something to that effect. In addition to being the King, he’s also the Prime Minister and hold portfolios in defence and finance. But everyone we spoke to LOVES him. And why wouldn’t you? He charges no tax, provides free education and health care, and petrol sells for 30 Australian cents a litre. The Bruneian people all seemed very happy and content, although I’m not sure how things will go when the oil eventually runs out.
I’ll leave you with some other alleged facts about the Sultan we learned.
– The BSB hospital recently had an influx of tall blond western women with injured ankles. The Sultan allegedly has a penchant for basketball and was making western women play in high heels at his palace. (probably best to take this one with a grain of salt).
– After catching his 2nd wife stealing his possessions to give to her family she was divorced, stripped of any royal entitlements and sent to solitary confinement in a mosque for 40 days to think about what she’d done. (tour guide / taxi driver told us this)
– Once at a British casino he exchanged around £500,000 for betting chips. When asked for ID by the casino cashier (in accordance with casino policy) the sultan simply produced a note of Bruneian currency which bore his image. (guy we met a few weeks later was the nephew of the casino cashier)
– During the 90’s his family accounted for almost half the world wide purchases of Rolls Royce automobiles (wikipedia)
– He has over 7000 high performance cars worth over US$5 billion. (wikipedia)
– He spend over US$3 billion on a theme park with free entry as a gift to his people. After initial interest the theme park is seldom visited and is basically a ghost town these days. (various sources)
– In 1991, he introduced a conservative ideology to Brunei called Melayu Islam Beraja (MIB) (or Malay Islamic Monarchy), which presents the monarchy as the defender of the faith (wikipedia). As a result the sale of alcohol is forbidden and I went 3 whole days without a drink (apart from some rice wine we procured under the table….)
If you ever get a chance to visit Brunei I’d highly recommend it. It’s often overlooked as part of a Borneo itinerary but for 3 days you’d struggle to find a more unique place on the planet.
Over the next few weeks I’ll be blogging about other parts of the trip so keep stopping by if you’re interested!
