Last night I found a 24 hour café with free wi-fi. Needless to say, I staggered away at a silly time (1:30) after the first half of the Sunderland v Liverpool game. As alcohol sales are illegal here, I had a nice pot of lemon tea while I surfed and shouted at the telly.

I didn’t sleep in this morning, though. My roomies were quiet, but I tend to wake at 8:00-ish anyway, so got up and ran a few errands. A nearby supermarket provided a nice healthy fruit breakfast for a little over a pound and I picked up some blank CDs to ship backups of my photos home. The nice man in the shop threw in some keyrings as a present when I told him I was in Brunei on holiday!

After eating, I walked to the bus station where I bumped into John and Mel, the Aus/NZ couple. Again. I swear they’re following me around. We all waited for the number 39 bus to the museum together. When it arrived, minor chaos ensued.

Bizarrely, Bruneian people wait patiently for things like buses. And when they arrive, they all dive at the door at once. A rather burly man forced his way in front of us, blocking us with his arm. But I’ll let him off as he pushed people back so two older men could get on first. He then nodded at us three tourists to board after them. There’s obviously some system we’re not aware of. The other rule seems to be that every passenger must be seated as nobody else was allowed on board once the seats were filled.

A dollar got us to the museum – remember to shout or bang on the ceiling to announce that you want off as there are no bells on these buses. As with most everything in Brunei, the museum’s free to get in and it’s pretty good. There are sections on natural history, Islamic art, oil & gas, ASEAN, culture, Brunei’s history and the recovery of a wreck found a few years ago. All the displays are informative, though the English can be slightly ropey. For instance, “i.e.” instead of “e.g.” when giving a platypus as an example of a monotreme. I mean, *tut*. There are two monotremes (OK, so five of you class each of the four echidna species as separate), so it’s definitely “for example” not “that is”. Alright, that was a very anal example of the “bad” English – most of the signs are perfectly fine.

We spent maybe ninety minutes checking out the exhibits… and the really smelly loo which isn’t anywhere near the standard of the rest of the building. Apparently there’s another museum nearby, but we were somewhat museum’d out and opted to walk up the road to the bus stop.

Before we could get there, a car horn beeped and a local pulled over. “BSB? Hop in!”. Mind, when your fuel is 17.5p per litre, you can afford to give people a lift. Reportedly, this kind of behaviour is very common in Brunei. People just want to help out and they do like to meet tourists. Despite their best efforts, they don’t seem to get too many (although we also bumped into the French couple who arrived at the bus station as we were waiting for the 39!). I guess most people come to Borneo for diving in the well-known areas such as Sipadan.

Our chauffeur turned out to be a security guard, an especially easy job in Brunei as there’s virtually no crime. As he put it, he locks the door then goes to sleep for the night. And he doesn’t pay tax on his income as there is none in Brunei. No income tax, no sales tax, no… whatever insane taxes we’re dreaming up at home now.

I separated from my colonial buds when we got back, though I’ll likely catch them on the early bus to the ferry tomorrow morning. I chose to go local for lunch and picked out Jollibee, a Bruneian (I think) fast food place. Well, I’ve never seen one outside of Brunei so I guess it’s local food. The chicken pita wrap I had was passable, though a little small. On a whim, I popped into an amusement arcade for half an hour as well. It seemed like a good idea at the time, but will someone please tell me when combat games started to require four or six buttons as well as the joystick? Crime Fighter and Yie Ar Kung Fu were always fine with just the three.

And once again I show my age.

Postcards have been written and will be posted shortly. Tonight’s plan is to chill out then head back to the same café to watch us getting embarassed by ManUre. Just because I’m on the opposite side of the world is no excuse to miss watching us taking a drubbing.

So my brief visit to Brunei comes to an end. It’s been cool, but the one thing that needs improved here is the public transport. It’s often easy to get somewhere, but as the buses all stop at 6pm getting back again can be a problem. Alternatively, give free cars to tourists! BSB itself is a nice enough city, but it’s quite small and everything apart from a handful of a handful of attractions are too far out to walk to.