BRUNEI TRIP

The Brunei trip was my second after I visited the place when I was around 15 years old. At that time, it was not even the 1997 economic crisis in Asia and therefore, the Jerudong Park was still free for all and you can play to your heart’s content. Jerudong Park is the theme park which the Sultan owns I heard.

We decided to go late morning as the trip should take us 2 hours to reach the city centre of Brunei from Miri. The road within Brunei is quite nice but we heard about the cheaper petrol pricing in Brunei so we decided not to have too much petrol in our fuel tank. Therefore we pump in RM15 of fuel so the fuel meter is half full for a modified Kancil. Modified here means the engine of the car is imported from Japan, totally changed, the hood changed to give better ventilation, the gear handle also modified to be as tall as the middle point between your shoulder and elbow.

We went through the immigration and came to the first Shell petrol station. We decided not to pump petrol because we still have sufficient in the tank. As we drove further and further, we began to panic because there are no petrol stations throughout the whole damn one hour journey! We finally reached a petrol station and it was closed for prayer as we went on a Friday. We need to wait one and a half hours for it to reopen again so we decided to bet by driving further in the hope to get another in time. Our meter is close to the End level.

We drove and drove for almost another hour and it was very near the End level. I decided to switch off the aircon as well as the audio CD player. Haha! The maximum speed the Kancil can go was 120km/h. We reached Jerudong Park and decided to drive to a small grocery store nearby opened by a Chinese. It is good because only the Chinese will operate business during prayer time. We decided to ask the boss for directions to the nearest petrol station and luckily, he said it is just 10 minutes away. That gave us great relief since we believe that our petrol won’t last us another 15 minutes more. The directions are abit complicated so he decided to drive us there instead since he also needed to get some stuff at the town there itself.





When we reach there, the petrol station is not open yet but the prayers should be done within 15 minutes time. Then, you will rows and rows of car lining up to fill petrol. It is pretty dumb if you ask me. Why will the people there who knows that the petrol station will close during prayers will purposely wait until then of all times to fill petrol? You tell me!







After that, we drove to the capital city, Bandar Seri Begawan. The main city is not very big. In my opinion, it is around the size of Sibu town the most. We went to this shopping centre which has a east and west wing separated by a square with water fountain at the centre. You can see the mosque directly pointing towards the middle of the square.







I bought some chocolates there as they are quite attractively priced. By the way, I saw this particular school which has a hilarious name. Sekolah Rendah Orang Kaya Setia Bakti Kilanas Brunei III! It is translated as Brunei’s Kilanas Loyal (Devoted) Rich Man’s Primary School! Damn, so funny!













We headed to Jerudong Park by evening to see how empty and dead the place has become! It is like a ghost town! During my first visit to Brunei, the whole place is like a fully loaded sardine with the atmosphere of a busy marketplace. Now? You can count the amount of tourists inside the theme park. I think during our whole visit, I can count less than 30 people! I am serious! A lot of the rides and attractions are closed and you have very limited choices. You will be frustrated with the entrance and package money you paid. I was particularly saddened that the go-kart is not operating anymore.







There were some clowns hanging around though. I think their job is mainly to entertain the kids, which I think is less than 5 at that time. I think we played only 4-5 items before we decided to go home. We reached home Miri around 10pm. It was quite a dull country to visit if you ask me but they have really extremely big stuffs like resorts and mansions to remind me how poor I am.