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um... news flash STA Travel website, brunei is not in the middle east!! cant believe thats actually listed as middle east here!!
i am in brunei. it may be a sultanate with no form of democracy and no taxes, just oil money and free education, most of the women are muslims and cover their hair and yes it is a islamic country which bans gays and alcohol but it is certainly not in the middle east, its in asia. unless i accidentally crossed more oceans when i wasnt looking!
seriously tho, this place is kinda odd. very intersting for me, especially as im talking to lots of locals and finding out lots about how things work over here. for instance, as civil servants all teachers need express permission from the sultan to leave the country on weekends. friday afternoon brunei becomes a ghost town cos everyone goes to pray at the mosques and the various royal princes and princesses and the sultan of course own pretty much every enterprise there is here! bizarre. my friend phoebe works for porsche, which is owned by a prince and parties with him at his house. yes the cars are lush here, cos noone has anything to buy except pend money on cars so there are so many gorgeous ones. one problem, theyre all automatic drive! crazy.
the country is tiny. u can drive across it in a couple of hours and ppl regularly cross the border for dinner with a couple of beers. i \ve been to see most of the major sites already. the mosque is the most expensive in asia and the roof is made of gold, most of the exterior of italian marble and english stained glass. visited the venice of the east, water villages which are huge (pictures to come) where 27000 ppl live on stilts over the river and use boats to get evrywhere. theyre so friendly, to me especially (they love westerners) when we were weaving between the villages on a taxi boat. yesterday we visisted the 6 star hotel which is mostly empty and thus v cheap (tip to those who fancy visiting, get a local t book it for u it only costs 50 quid a night for 6 star luxury. but no beer im afraid- maybe AA shd hold a conference here!) also visited the golf club and polo club (300 bavarian horses or something crazy. beautiful animals even from me and i know nowt about horses) belonging to the sultan and his private museum of priceless islamic art. also note he lives in a house with 1400 rooms which is run for his convenience by the Grand Hyaatt hotel chain. nice. hes very goodlooking according to all the women here and evryone adores him, far more than we respect our dear queen!
having a lot of fun with phoebe and finally getting a bit of a rest altho we're off to miri (malaysia-sarawak) this weekend for a party. love to all. more news and pics to follow soon
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