Come to Brunei

Brunei was on BBC1 tonight, hooray. It was on Holiday, which is a holiday programme (surprisingly...). It was quite impressive, and showed off Brunei's strengths i.e. beautiful mosques, kampung air (the largest water village in the world) and fabulous untouched rainforests.

It was visited by someone called Saba Douglas-Hamilton, who described herself as a naturalist. There is a write up about Brunei in the holiday programme website here. So well done whoever organised it in the Brunei Tourism Department.

If you haven't been to Brunei, it's well worth visiting. The set-up for tourists is not as developed compared to other places in SE Asia like Malaysia or Thailand but we are friendly, the food is delicious and the rainforests are lovely.


Here is a photo of showing Kampung Ayer (or Air in standard Malay).

Residents use "water taxis" to get to work, you can see them in the picture. The women who live in Kampung Ayer are expert at climbing up and down the wooden ladders to the boats wearing high heeled stilettos when they go to work or on their way to weddings. They make it look easy...

The only (very minor) issue to be aware of is: you can't buy alcohol in Brunei as it is a Muslim country - but if you are a non-muslim, you can bring in 12 cans of beer or two bottles of alcohol for your personal consumption. So buy your Jack Daniels at the airport duty free before you get to Brunei.