Brunei isn’t like other countries. It may be small (both geographically and population wise, having less than half a million citizens) but it has a huge amount of oil reserves! The country has a rich history, being ruled by a long line of sultans dating back to the 14th century. The country has a majority Muslim population, and is governed by Sharia Law. This results in what I believe are some really positive things for its society, including a strong anti-drug stance, as well as being a dry country. This seems to have a net positive effect on peoples behaviour, resulting in some of the least violent and most pleasant people you will ever meet. The current Sultan of Brunei Hassanal Bolkiah was at one point the richest person on Earth.
The keen travellers among you will no doubt recognise the name of this country. Popular travel vlogger Drew Binsky created a video many years ago listing the country among his top five least favourite in the world to visit! However, the more I learnt about it, the more curious I became, and I often wondered if it was truly as bad as what some people were saying. During a layover in Malaysia, we found some cheap tickets to Brunei, and decided to spend 4 days there, to find out for ourselves exactly what being a tourist in Brunei is like.
We arrived on a Friday in June. One important thing to note is that Brunei basically shuts down for two hours every Friday between the hours of 12pm-2pm. We stayed at the nicest hotel I’ve ever stayed in in my life, The Empire Brunei, and I asked one of the staff members there what happens for them between those hours. He explained that the this time was set aside to go to mosque. He also explained that he still got aid for those two hours, which seemed pretty cool. The Empire Brunei is truly a masterpiece with incredibly professional staff. Words will never do it justice, so take a look for yourself…
Being a resort, The Empire Brunei has many things to do. We could have spent 3 or 4 days in The Empire Brunei alone. While we stayed there, we went to the cinema, played a few rounds of ten-pin bowling, did some cycling, played some badminton, hit the gym and went to the driving range. This barely scratches the surface of all the amazing things on offer at the resort. The golf course at the resort was designed by professional golfer Jack Nicklaus, and has won many awards, it’s truly world class. I’m not the worlds best golfer, but had a swing at the driving range (clearly my form needs a lot of work).
There are many things this small country has to offer, and we just didn’t have enough time to see it all. We went out on our first day to the capital Bandar Seri Begawan. We were shown many beautiful bridges and buildings. One of the most iconic of course is the Omar Ali Saifuddien Mosque. Unfortunately the rain came in just as we were taking some photos of it.
We were also shown the water village, including a school which is right in the middle of the Brunei River. One of our taxi drivers explained that we grow up in the water village. Water Taxi’s are available to go and explore the village, but it began to rain so we decided against it.
Being that the Brunei is a dry country, the Bruneians really have to work hard to attract tourists and customers. One of the ways they achieve this best is in the quality and overall yumminess of their food. We were taken to the well known Gadong Night Market (which thankfully was undercover, as it was absolutely pouring down with rain) which had many stalls cooking up all sorts of yummy food, reminding me very much of the street food that one may find in Thailand, although perhaps not as cheap.
We also had fantastic food back at The Empire Brunei. We enjoyed sitting down in a romantically lit dining room with a fantastic view of the main part of the hotel and the South China sea. We went to go take a look at the small selection of retail outlets in the resort, before retreating back to our room, out onto the balcony with a great view of the beach and rainforest.
We woke up the next morning to a gorgeous sunny day. We went again to the capital to visit what would end up being our favourite destination in Brunei, the Royal Regalia Museum. We love museums more than most people, and we ended up spending more than 2 hours here (and still didn’t get to see everything). You are required to take your shoes off before entering the museum, and no videos are allowed. One of the display rooms is guarded by soldiers. This was a little confronting at first, but the soldiers were really friendly and quickly made us feel at ease. At the end, the staff were very surprised to see we had spent so long in the museum. They were so happy to see Australian tourists enjoying their country. They were very friendly and showered us in compliments. After speaking to them for a little bit, we left to go get lunch.
I have this little tradition where I love to try and experience McDonalds in different countries. in Brunei, they had a very empty two-storey McDonalds in the capital, and there I tried a green tea McFlurry. It was pretty awesome. After lunch we headed back to enjoy The Empire Brunei, as we were here for our honeymoon, and wanted to relax and enjoy the resort as much as possible in the short time we were there.
When I look at what Drew Binsky initially said about Brunei (he has since gone to Brunei again and had a much more positive experience) it made me think about how we as individuals tend to have our favourite and not so favourite countries, and how no two preferences are ever really identical. Our own morals, personalities and the cultures we grew up in can heavily impact how much we like or dislike a country. We loved Brunei because we are introverted, quiet people who aren’t huge about partying and enjoy the finer things in life, but not everyone is like us and that’s okay. Every traveller has their favourite and least favourite country. Therefore, if its anything we can learn from this, it’s that we shouldn’t completely reply on the experiences of others when deciding whether we should travel to a certain country or not. You have to get out there and experience it for yourself! I can count on one hand the amount of countries I would visit again, and Brunei has made it onto that exclusive list.
