Wednesday, June 24, 2009
7:39am (slept til 6, instead of waking at my recent norm of 3am. And happily not obsessed with the itchy certainty of imaginary (I hope!) bugs in the bed, as I was nite before last!)
Morning in Brunei Darussalam. Brunei, Abode of Peace…
We left Labuan yesterday afternoon in a whirlwind, barely making the last ferry (“death machine” scary boat) of the day to Borneo’s Brunei, and with no hotel reservations, though we knew where we wanted to stay. We really did have every intention of calling the hotel before we left Labuan, but the 430 ferry was cancelled and the last ferry out was 330. We made the boat, had no problems getting in at the wildly opulent (in a bit of a Vegas kinda way) Empire Hotel, and witnessed the most amazing sunset I’ve ever seen, sinking over the South China Sea.
Brunei is a sleepy Sultanate on Borneo, somewhat full of expats (which I am beginning to feel a lot like, as nearly the only Anglo anywhere, in our travels so far). Peaceful, perhaps because His Highness has his pleasure with caning and zero tolerance drug death penalties, in a tiny country rich on oil sold to North Korea -- but nonetheless, (relatively) ecologically pristine, tax free, with (for native Bruneis) free education, health care, free land for homes, and interest-free loans. But I digress, I’m not here for the politics!:
The views of the ocean are glorious, the surroundings, tropical rainforest, the absurdly sumptuous buffet last nite saved me from my previous Labuan starvation, and yet, I subsist, in (marginally) The Orient no less, on Lipton tea. Help! Perhaps serious tea awaits at our next port of embarkation!
Adventures today to be determined...
PS. I was previously remiss in telling the tale of the mall pharmacist in Labuan who, after I broke his door, happily sold me all sorts of bandages and meds for my little blistered feeties. Perhaps not much of a tale after all...
PSS. And don’t even get me started on the delightful presence of the bidet! Oh! And the dragon fruit! More on that later!
