Last entry on Brunei

I can give you all some information on the fruit .... We bought a large bag of them to take back to the Hotel ... I really liked them ..You broke the skin and sqeezed the clearish flsh was exposed which was very sweet and remeniscent of Lychee perhaps ... but in the Centre was a brown seed .....We didn't cook the seeds up to try :O)

The Longan( Dragons Eye) is so named as it resembles an eyeball when shelled, (the black seed shows through the translucent flesh like a pupil )The fruit is edible and used in desserts and sweet and sour dishes, the seed cooked has a nutty flavour

 

 

We put so much in during the two short days in Brunei ... Having been dropped off back at the we collapsed into bed and slept through til morning ... The room had a 42 inch TV which was unusual for hotels ..McD had chosen well :O) Breakfast in the hotel . Not the best but fine ... because they are a Muslim country, no Bacon ...They did have Beef Rashers though !!! Tasted like boiled corned silverside and very unapealing ..but there was other stuff .... We then had the morning to ourselves so out we went for a walk before the heat built up again .....

The foyer of our floor ..McD making hersef at home :O)

 

 

  Having stopped off for a coffee in a very modern 'starbucks' style cafe (the coffee was better than starbucks) we wandered along the road taking in the sites and the people .... It's all so modern though .. Brunei MacDonalds was there !! Is there anywhere in this world where they are not ?? We had to get a picture of the Brunei MacDs delivery service :O) I had hoped we would stumble on a park or something but we never did ... We tracked back in a large circle crossing busy roads between cars (They even stopped for us !!) and walked along some smaller clothes and hardware shops, before finding a supermarket closer to the hotel where we stocked up on bottled water for the day and a few unusual cold drinks they had there ...

 

 

 

Then back to the hotel and the Mall which is connected to the back of the Hotel ..... We had lunch wit hthe locals at the food court there ...Some nice mix of philipino dishes.... Our guide picked us up shortly after that ... It was to be a more cultural afternoon ... Visiting no less than 3 museums .. I had asked that they find us a park or something to visit but it wasn't to be ....

The first museum was dedicated to the Sultan of Brunei ... Ceremonial carriages, ballgowns and military style suites all on display along with the family history in pictures etc of the Sultan ..... Our guide, able to speak continuously for 2 or 3 life-times on a single intake of breath rattles off who they had all married , divorced etc along whith which cousins married what cousins from what line .... Now I really had no interest .. I wandered off as much as I could leaving McD and her together .. McD has more interest than me in that .... Of Course some of the artifacts were interesting but too few and far between 

One thing though was that an entire floor was dedicated to the 'gifts'  other countries had given the Sultan (brunei?) over a period .... Now some of these gifts were quite something ... Swords , model cities in silver, beautifully etched Kris knives ..... And there in a corner behind glass was new zealands  ... "Hey McD come and look at this !!!" I could n't believe it we'd presented them wit hthe tiniest little shopping bag woven out of flax (Moari ) that would have sat in the palm of my hand  ... and some wooden thing .... THAT WAS IT !!!!!!   No carved Moari greenstone ??!!!!! No NZ Iconic peice of art ??!!!!!!   We Were Embarrassed !!!!!!! and walked on quickly ...

The rest of the afternoon plodded on ...A visit to a meusem that held a mockup of a Bornio Tribe Villiage .. The guide just having inhaled again from the 1st museum talks was in full chatter .... The villiage was interesting though ... A large coral style of up right fiishing nets ....  Showing how they made tabioca ... stuff like that .... The chatter was starting to give me a headache ....... 

And then a musuem on ...Well bits and bobs I guess ... A history of the oil industry there ..... And a large collection of the Koran books from around the 1400s onwards I think.....

The last stop was to visit the Mosque again in daylight this time .... It was a prayer day and even late in the afternoon may people were there or leaving or arriving ..... However the guide gained permission for us to go in and also to climb the steps to the top of one of the towers to get a view across the city ....!!! It was 35 degrees poeple and she wanted us to climb a tower !!!! 

Stuff that I told McD ... I'll leave you and her to it... .McD was actually keen to do the climb ... 

Now what I hadn't realised was that the guide wasn't going to do the climb with MCD ... Otherwise I would have gone with her ... ....

It was nice though sitting in the gardens and watching the world go by .... Everyone so friendly !! Smiling and saying hello....... What a shame other muslim country's couldn't be the same ......

You will have to keep visiting McDs site.. She has started writing again and will show the pictures she took from the spire top ... She was very dark red by she retuned to terr-firma..... 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And that was our Brunei trip ...... That evening the hotel had a special evening at the restaurant there and we dined on fresh whole fish cooked in a fresh  mango sauce along with all sorts  of dishes you could go help yourself to ...All indonesian style ... Yum ...    ..... the next morning we were packed and off to the airport .... a lot of hanging around and then a 3 hour flight and we were at Hong kong airport .......

 

After the river trip, as nightime fell, our guide gave us the option of where we would like to eat ...A 'safe" Thai restaurant or would we like to eat local food ?? 

So there we were sat in the middle of a number of street style outdoor cafe's awaiting our guides selection of food items frm a number of diffeent places ..Each cafe had it's own version of a BBQ right outside on the pavement. The air thick with the smells of food and smoke ..... The table was on the river bank  and we could watch as the stilts villiage lit up and the sun set over the river where we had travelled a shot time before.... The guides set us up nicely and dispite our offer, ate at a different table .... I think they thought McD and I should have a romantic dinner alone :O)

Except the food just kept arriving satays , then rice in banana palm, then a fish dish they wouldn't tell us what the fish was called but I knew it as being sting or manta ray wings , BBQ'd Chicken wings,  a delicious noodle soup, and the main attraction for the chinese guide anyway - Clams (cockles) BBQ 'd... Shell fish ... Love them .. But shell fish from the mouth of this river ???? Oh boy ...... Though we did eat a few and delicious they were but we left most of them . The food overall was delicious ...Especially the satays ..Two plates of beef and chicken satays and dipping sauce ..Yum .. Almost as good as the ones in Bali Arbi :O) 

At the end of the meal the guide asked about the clams and we had to say unfortunately they came a little late and we were full .... We offered them to the guide and she took them home in a doggy bag ...    

And off we went again to the night market. A permenant market open only in the evening, it was a busselling and vibrant place ...A great atmosphere AND if I had just remembered to bring my mono-pod or tripod with me We would have had some great pictures ...............

I've added a few of the better ones ...But very dissappointing for me not to have gotten better shots .....

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A few more pictures in the next entry ....

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Brunei and the River Trip

 

I'm Still not well !!!!!!!!!!!!  Spent sunday afternoon feeling like death warmed up my nose like a tap being switched on and off ... Still spent 3 hours at the PC trying to build some power point slides - McD helping - for a presentation I was supposed to do this morning .... AND we lost the first attempt !!!!! Networked computing sucks big time.... McD ignored my onsetting nervous breakdown on losing version 1 and recreated Version 2 with great success I might add....AND THEN this morning I'm still like death and throats like someones been ramming a rasp down it all night and there was no way I was going in to do anything ...................................... 

McD reckons I have manflu .... The worst of all Flus in the world ...

ManFlu   

Actually I'm much worse than that ... AND McD went off to work and left me to suffer All alone .... :O\

 

OK - Brunei -

 

After the stop off at the villiage on stilts we were taken up the river and into the outskirts of the jungle there ... I loved it ...Could have spent a full day just watching the wildlife - the Birds and the reptiles in the mangroves ...

 

 

And of course the proboscus monkeys ... They call them "Dutchmen" locally because of their big noses .... Unfortunately the low light plus the high vibration of the boat engine meant most of my pictures were no good .... The big Male had perched himself at the top of a tree and promptly turned his back to us ...He didn't want to know ..but at one point turned his head to see what the noise was as the guide and boatman goaded him with 'monkey calls' ...

 

Obviously not too good at the monkey calls as he didn't turn around ....I did wonder what might happen if they had produced in monkey language something like "come on bignose, I'll take you on " ... .. He looked big enough to take us all on one handed ...

 

 

 

The big Monitor type lizard were rather plentiful along the muddy bank .... And very active ..always on the move as we neared them ... And not always to move away from us ...

 

 

 

 

 

As you can see we were never too far from civilisation ... Houses were dotted along the river

 

 

 

 

And then on the return journey we were able to see some of the mosques and villiage from a different perspective .

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Anyway - it was a few houre of absolute pleasure and next time we go to brunei I'm going further into the jungle ... it was awesome ... 

 

Next entry - why the "we are so going to Die" phrase just kept comeing up ..... And the Night Market..