Bandar Seri Begawan – the capital of Brunei

The next country of our tour was Brunei. Brunei is a small Sultan country between the Malaysian states of Sarawak and Sabah on the northern coast of Borneo.
An hour late, we were picked up by a minivan at our guesthouse in Miri and reached after 3 hours drive from the capital of Brunei, Bandar Seri Begawan, also abbreviated BSB. Much we did not know beforehand about the small country, but the name “Bandar Seri Begawan” has always fascinated us, so we wanted to have the capital only because of the name of a visit.

BSB 140.000 Population, 20.000 live in the water village “Kampong Ayer”. The houses in “Kampong Ayer” are built on stilts over the water of the river Brunei. We were looking for us a guest house in the water village and thus lived the next day in a different way than usual, namely the water. With the water taxi we went in a few minutes from the mainland across the river to our accommodation, the Homestay “Malay Water Village Modern House”. This is located in the newly built part of the village water. All the houses here look very modern and well maintained.
In the afternoon we procured in “Kampong Ayer” Museum a glimpse into the history of Bandar Seri Begawan. With the water taxi we then moved back to the mainland and have looked after dinner Omar Ali Mosque Saifuddien. At night this impressive building looks especially beautiful with its lights off. Before the mosque there is a man-made lagoon with a boat. We heard from afar the cries of the muezzin, and then saw many people rush into their typical robes to the mosque. The muezzin call to prayer had in fact. Moreover, today was a very special day for Muslims: with sunset had the fasting month “Ramadan” started. Ramadan is the ninth month of the Islamic lunar calendar, and in him the Qur'an was sent down according to the Islamic view. Muslims eat and drink from sunrise- to sunset nothing. Unfortunately, it is not allowed during this time for tourists, to enter the mosque. You should also look very nice from the inside, decorated with many valuable materials e.g.. Italian marble. Thus, we could consider the mosque from the outside. All the people we were traveling met very nice and smiled at us and asked where we came from some.
With many happy memories of this day came to an end and the water taxi took us back to our accommodation in the water village.

The next day started with breakfast on the terrace in front of our guest house. We were probably one of the few people, were allowed to eat anything this time in BSB. Today we wanted to see the old part of the village water. The Kampong Ayer (= Kampong village, Ayer = water) is the largest water village in Southeast Asia. About 4,000 buildings, predominantly of wood, are connected by wooden walkways to each other. If you do not see the satellite dishes on the house, you would think they would have landed in the past. But all the houses now have electricity, Water connection and Internet. Nevertheless, many of the houses look pretty old and run down from. Swims in the water much stranded waste, especially plastic packaging and even a sofa we have seen.
Sunshine and blue skies so we walked through the 1,000-year-old village. It's very fascinating how people live here. Everything happens on the water from. There are schools, Mosques, small shops and restaurants. We saw the boys flying kites, Women and men prepare the food while fishing. From a distance we could see the Sultan's Palace, that is, with more than 1,800 rooms, the largest palace in the world.
After our visit to the water village we Saifuddien Omar Ali Mosque watched again in daylight at first and then made a break for lunch. This we had to but because of heavy rain, unfortunately, extend some. In the afternoon the rain let up and luckily we took the bus to Jame'Asr Hassanal Bolkiah Mosque, the largest mosque in the country. But unfortunately we were not even in here, there was just no time to visit.
We had planned to take a boat ride through the water village, past the Sultan's palace to a forest, where you can see proboscis monkeys, but it looked so, as if it was going to rain at any moment. Thus we strolled through a mall and were looking for a cozy place for dinner. Alcohol on the menu the way you look in vain, for the sale and public consumption of alcohol is banned in Brunei.

On Thursday our alarm clock rang at 4 already:30 clock. To the loud call to prayer of the muezzin through the still dark night we tortured ourselves out of bed. We ask ourselves, how to voluntarily get up at this time to pray. After a sugary coffee and a chocolate pudding cake for breakfast we drove half an hour later with the water taxi to the mainland and went to the bus stop. We did not know exactly when should our bus ride, because everyone else had told us. So we were rather something earlier. After waiting for an hour then came the right bus and we drove from Bandar Seri Begawan to the ferry at Muara. It went very smoothly through customs and we got our exit stamps of Brunei. One and a half hours, we took the ferry to Labuan, a Malaysian duty-free island. Meanwhile we had a lot of hunger and to an Indian lunch, we took the next ferry in 3h driving time to Kota Kinabalu, our next destination …