Well its day 3, and we have only been ripped off 2 times. We are winning this game! Ripped off count: 2. The latest casualty was actually our new friend that we met in the hostel.... We walked through a market place to buy some fruit. We thought we were pretty clued up on what was what after our star tour guide taught us about 20 new types of fruit last night. Well with all our memories combined... we still got ripped off. Some guy had red pomegranate seeds in a cucumber looking fruit and we had never seen this one before, so had to try it. We bargained him down to $1 for a kilo then walked out, cracked open our yummy new fruit - it was a vegetable, and there was no sign of red pomegranate bits on the inside. It was a fraudulent fruit! And it smelled so awful. Needless to day, we didn't even try it - they all went in the bin. Lucky food is so cheap here. I'm about to have a sweet corn icy pole for about 30c.
Breakfasts here are interesting too. They only cost about $2-3 and you basically eat a Hahns meal. I think Hans should open for breakfast - and drop their prices. Really, $8 for a meal is way too expensive. We could go to Brunei, and eat for $3. I have been putting chili Sambal on food here. The chili is really mild - so even softies like me can eat lots of chili. Maybe cos they know we are westerners - they tone it down...
we went on a boat cruise yesterday. The boat was more like a flash wooden dingy. It was so cool! We went to check out the village set on stilts. Now that is a wicked concept. all along the river Families live in wooden houses built on wooden stilts. They have electricity, fresh water, sewerage and telephone. Its awesome. However the quality of the wiring is something to be left to the imagination.
Every few months, houses burn down = to the point where they have this huge fire station built on the water. Let me say, that I would not be surprised if the cause of the fires is due to electrical fault. Once a house burns down, they can not rebuild on the same site, so the government puts them up in accommodation somewhere, until a new house can be built for them. The new places are small in comparison to the old wooden homes. We had afternoon tea in one home that had 7 bedrooms, and 1 bathroom. The new places are only 3x2's. However they are much cleaner, made of concrete, not wood, and the paths between the houses are also made of concrete Not rickety wooden slats - some of which are missing, or about to break. When we were at the new section, we met a local who was in a motor bike accident. He was riding his motor bike when a bus hit him (and ran over him), a car then ran over him after that. He broke his arm, pelvis, jaw and skull. He was in a coma for 3 weeks and obviously required neurosurgery!! Guess where this was managed... Brunei and Malaysia. He spent time in the Brunei ICU, however they became full, so they transferred him to Malaysia hospital. This kid is now well, and intends to return to his job of working at the palace again. Wow! For a town of 60,000 people, and a country with 400,000 I find that truly amazing!
Part of this tour, and what the Brunei people call the highlight of Brunei, is finding the Proboscis monkey. This is a crazy money with a huge nose. We couldn't actually see the monkey's nose - even with my glasses on, as the monkeys were high in the trees of the jungle. After lots of searching, we found the allusive proboscis monkey family. There were 2 babies, and a couple of others. It is sad to say, but i was far more interested in this massive lizard that was next to our boat. he was moving really slowly, and our guide said he was lazy cos they normally move fast. After a few minutes, the lizard reared up and started dancing... then power spewed his dinner around the floor. It looked like he either ate baby mud crabs (which were everywhere) or a massive spider. As much as I really think it was a massive spider, I'll hope it was a mud crab.... Later that night, we went to another night market for dinner - fried green mango snapper. It tasted so good. We later got slushy's, I got Lychee, Dale got Yam, and Ben got Durian, Ben lost that game. Let me warn anyone and everyone against Durian. We were all burping it up hours afterwards. It was awful. Yam however is really nice!
We are now about to jump on the plane for our 27 hour flight to London....
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