An amazingly modern city with big highways, beautiful homes, and majestic gold domed mosques, office towers, and modern buildings. Oil finds which lasts only another 20 years fuels the country. The Sultan is a generous man who makes sure his 400,000 people share in the rewards of the oil revenue. In 1991, they celebrated the billionth barrel of crude oil-you do the number$. That means no taxes, free healthcare and higher education, free land to build a home and then financing to cover construction.
On arrival, we hired a small motorboat and went to the water village. Five thousand houses on the water house 30,000 people. Large homes, schools and fire stations are all on the water. The boat owner took us to his house. With 16 family members, 8-14 children in each family are common. We drank tea with them and gave us a tour of their rather opulent home. Wide screen TV's, beautiful furniture etc. We continued on up river into a small mangrove swamp tributary and sighted probiscus large nose monkeys in the jungle.
Later in the day we were resting at a food court in town and a couple sitting next to us arrived with lunch for us. Taking us to their large home, we got a better understanding of middle class Brunei. Four of their six children welcomed us. Each has their own computer and the dad has six cars ranging from a Beetle to a Mercedes. They then insisted on taking us on a several hour tour that including the Royal Mosque, Sultan's Palace (drive-by), large American style mall and then to the beach and then back to our ship. The teenage daughters who spoke perfect english joined us for the drive. These hospitable people gave a real sense of this oil rich sultanate where everyone has it all. We left them as good friends; hopefully to see them again.
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