Brunei

It seems that we just unpacked from our trip to the US only to re-pack two days later for Brunei ...a trip we had planned before our surprise return to the States. We made it to Bandar Seri Begawan (BSB) on Wednesday evening and the kids and I have been enjoying the beach and pool while Jonathan works.

Brunei sits on the north coast of the island of Borneo and is an interesting combination of oil wealth (competing with Singapore as the richest country in SE Asia) and traditional village culture. The current sultan is rumored to have inherited over 40 billion from his father and has a collection of over 5,000 exotic cars, making him one of Rolls Royce's largest customers. Yet, Brunei also has the world's largest water village, Kampung Ayer, which includes 42 villages clustered together with over 30,000 inhabitants -- 10% of Brunei's total population. We plan to take a water taxi tour of the village this evening and then do a one-day Borneo rainforest trek tomorrow to nearby Ulu Temburong National Park. Should be an exciting few days!