Brunei an unspoilt, exotic paradise for royal watchers
Brunei an unspoilt, exotic paradise for royal watchers
By Andreas Heimann
BANDAR SERI BEGAWAN (DPA): Many people associate Brunei with Arabian deserts, camels and sheikhs yet this tiny state is not part of the Arabian Peninsula, it is in southeast Asia, in northern Borneo.
The error is still understandable though since Brunei Darussalam, as the state is officially called, is a sultanate and it is thoroughly Islamic.
Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah, the ruler of Brunei, takes religion very seriously. In 1991 he banned the sale of alcohol throughout the country. It is also forbidden to drink beer and wine in public. Even bars at international hotels serve only freshly squeezed fruit juices. Royal Brunei, the state airline, also serves no alcoholic beverages and prayers are offered to Allah before every take-off.
None of this has contributed to making Brunei a top tourist attraction although the territory has many merits. There are no violent ethnic conflicts, no political unrest and crime is virtually unheard of. "It is one of the safest places in the world," said Klaus-Peter Brandes, German ambassador in Brunei's capital Bandar Seri Begawan since May 1999. And unlike the Indonesian southern half of Borneo, the rain forest in Brunei has remained largely untouched.
Brunei has so far had no need to attract tourism. The sultan is one of the richest men in the world with an estimated fortune of US$36.5 billion. His 330,000 subjects have also benefited from the country's oil reserves -- the country has the highest per capita income in southeast Asia. Now it hopes tourism will provide another safe economic stake.
One of the biggest attractions to foreign guests is the royal family itself. Sultan Bolkiah certainly has a certain glamour factor. He has two wives, 10 children, at least 200 horses for playing polo, and good many cars. He recently gave one of his daughters an airplane for her birthday, complete with an on-board swimming pool.
His palace Istana Nurul Iman has nearly 1,800 rooms and 257 bathrooms, although visitors can usually only marvel at it from outside. But if you wander through the capital Bandar Seri Begawan -- known as BSB for short -- you stumble upon many traces of the sultan's family, such as the splendid Omar-Ali-Saifuddin mosque, which Bolkiah's family had built in 1958.
Just around the corner from here is the shopping mall that the present sultan had built in 1996. The shops here contain nothing at all reminiscent of the orient, but are full of expensive western designer labels like Gucci and Cartier.
A little further north is the Royal Regalia Museum, opened in 1992 on the 25th anniversary of Hassan Bolkiah's coronation. Basically it is a celebration of the royal family itself. After taking off their shoes at the entrance, visitors can peruse photos of the ruler's ancestors, the sultan playing polo, playing golf and even taking part in a tug-of-war contest.
Other exhibits include a throne adorned with a tiger skin, and the robes the royal couple wore for their coronation. To mark the Silver Jubilee of his accession to the throne, the sultan had the Jame Asr Hassanil Bolkiah mosque built in green gardens adorned with fountains. Brunei's largest mosque with four symmetrically placed minarets is open to the public - visitors are expected to wear modest clothing.
The Kampung Ayer quarter offers a glimpse of the way the city might have looked before the streets were asphalted and new concrete housing blocks were built. This settlement built on stilts in the Brunei River can only be reached by boat. Individual houses are connected by wooden piers, many of them made of ramshackle planks.
At first sight, these dwellings seem to have all the flair of a corrugated iron hut, but they are all equipped with modern fittings, right down to the satellite dishes. The washing is dried on the veranda, cats stretch out on the piers in the sun. Alongside the local hospitals and mosques in Kampung Ayer, there are also a number of schools in which the children take their lessons in classrooms just above the water level.
Bandar Seri Begawan does not have a reputation as an exciting metropolis. The night life certainly does not match up to European expectations. If the local people go out at night, it is to the Night Market in the city center, consisting of a collection of small stalls next to each other, covered with plastic sheeting.
They sell raw ingredients, and fish is fried on the grills alongside meat kebabs or chicken wings. You might like to try local delicacies such as Ayam Goreng, chicken with rice, which you can also take away in styrofoam bowls.
There is plenty on offer for the sweet toothed - chocolate cake with desiccated coconut is not typical of the local cuisine, but a big favorite in Brunei.
Information in the Internet at www.visitbrunei.com.