Brunei - Day 1

Brunei!
Made it to the airport, and although we were well and truly not the last through check in, we were the last onto the plane. I just enjoy the personal service of having your name called out over the airport PA. The friendly "We are now unloading your bags from the airplane" just made it that much more welcoming- I didn't expect her to remember what my bag looked like.

The 5 hour flight over to Brunei was pretty decent- Butter chicken and Chivas 12, complemented by a DVD of Maid of Honour on repeat in case you didn't get a joke the first 3 times.

Close call this morning picking up the ipod- I still have no idea where Spearwood is, but apparently its not a round trip you can do from Dianella in an hour. The chick I bought the ipod off actually drove half way to meet me after I woke her up so I wouldn't miss my plane. What a champ! She even had it loaded with good songs and charged to boot. It made for a nice distraction from watching that chick flick that I couldn't get away from.

Not the flashest start to the day once we landed in Bandar Seri Begawan- We were sold tourist visas instead of transit visas (4x the price), we got forgotten at the airport by the hotel shuttle and later found we got jibbed on the bus we arranged to get to the hotel. At the hotel they jacked the price up of the rooms so we gave up on them and went up the road to the youth hostel that was pointed out by the bus driver- $10 a night each. sweet. It is pretty decent, but a few things to note: the showers don't have taps and they don't provide dunny paper. Im told it has just been renovated, though im sitting on a tube steel bed I could swear we took out in a bring out your dead day in 1995. Oh.. and Lynn has lost her camera already.

Went for a great tour though- saw the sultan's palace, a 6-star hotel, the night markets, princesses house and a bunch of other sights. Im still struggling with the fact that booze, gambling, smoking in public etc are all banned. We were cruising through the city centre and there were no other cars on the road at 9pm. Night markets here are awesome hey.. $1 for everything! a big container of curry and rice, a drink, a bunch of sweets- We pretty much had a 4-course dinner for $4. Durian, Lychees, Jungle fruit, chesnuts...

Tomorrow is roti for breakfast for 60c.