TASHY TRAVELS

Every Sunday, I am going to upload a post about the different countries I have visited and/or lived in since 2002.

I can assure you of some interesting stories.

BRUNEI

So, off we go to New Zealand. On our way from London to Auckland, We had a stopover in Brunei, partly because We had return tickets to Perth and couldn’t yet go there and mainly because the plane we were on also stopped there. We decided to spend two nights there in order to give us time to buy the last part of our ticket on to Auckland. I have to admit that I have no notes at all about this time so everything you will read here is from memory. However, in true, slightly disorganised fashion, I did find a little note about our flight from Perth to Poland a month or so before.

I am not that fond of flying. My girlfriend wasn’t bothered by it and slept most of the way. I didn’t, especially on the last part of our flight from Vienna to Warsaw, as I could only see one pilot on the plane. Supposing he felt ill. I stayed awake and read my “Idiots guide to flying a passenger plane”, which I luckily had brought with me. I’m glad the pilot didn’t know this. I am sure the knowledge that I thought I could fly the plane may have made him feel ill immediately. We finally went to bed in Poland at 3.00 am the night of our arrival, which meant I had probably had about 2 hours sleep in the previous 45 and I would not recommend this too often or, indeed, to anyone.

The first memory I have of Brunei is how hot it was and, also, how far from the main part of town the airport was. We didn’t want to stay in one of the posh hotels near the airport, so we headed toward the cheaper ones in town. I say, didn’t want to, I actually mean couldn’t afford to, as our finances were now in a pretty poor state.

For some reason, which I can’t even begin to remember, we decided to walk to the town with our two, extremely heavy, bags. We found another couple doing the same thing and I think we eventually clubbed together for a taxi, which took us to a backpacker-type place. We booked in for two nights. It was getting late so we probably went to bed.

The next memory concerns the mosque which we found on a little walk we took the next morning, before finding a travel agent. It was a magnificent building. For some reason, which I never understood mainly because I never asked, it had this boat-like structure at the side. We wandered around and got talking to some guy who said he would take us inside. I really can’t remember too much about it, except leaving my shoes outside, and seeing people using prayer mats to kneel and pray, and the vastness of the interior. I think my girlfriend had to cover her arms but I’m not too sure on that one. The guy explained to us that he went to pray at least twice a day.

Later, we noticed that there was a guy, right at the top of the tall tower, who would call people to worship. I think you might be able to see him, or someone, in the photo. You will need to click on it and enlarge it. We spent some time with our new friend, who was a well-travelled businessman, and, after the visit to the mosque, he sat with us in the park opposite. He told us that the gold-looking substance on the mosque was actually gold. He also said, and I for one wouldn’t disagree with him, that it was noted as the most beautiful mosque in Asia.

However beautiful it may have looked by day, it exceeded that at night. Green lights lit up the whole structure and I don’t know why I told you that because you can see it. Obviously we did too as I took the picture. It was one of those things you know you will never forget and one of the reasons I so love travelling. After our mosque visit we had gone to find a travel agent, a very helpful lady, who booked us on a flight to Auckland in New Zealand. We were to leave the next morning.

After that we went walkabout and found a market on the other side of the river. It all reminded me a little of Thailand, because as we walked along the riverbank and across a bridge, there were lots of river taxis chugging up and down with their drivers, pilots, navigators, whatever, shouting out the word taxi. We declined and after a brief look in the market and buying something cheap for dinner, we returned to our room to eat, pack and sleep, probably in that order, all in the reflection of a green lighted mosque.

We arrived at the airport nice and early, as you should. We checked in and had our luggage sent off on the conveyor. We wandered around a bit and then heard the call to board. We joined the queue and moved slowly forward. We handed our passes to the lady and she waved us on.

Then, just before we got to the gates, we heard a voice shouting out ‘you, you, you Polish, you can’t go’. As one of us was Polish, it seemed likely she was talking to us. We stopped. She came up to us and said, ‘Come with me’. I have this practice that when I am in a strange country and a person of authority says come with me, I go. She took us to an office and, along with her more senior colleague, explained that my girlfriend could not go on this flight as it had a refuelling stop in Brisbane. As a Pole, she needed a visa to land in Australia. This sounded stupid to me as we wouldn’t be leaving the airport or even going through customs. So, politely, I argued this point. The woman was adamant or I suppose as she was a female, she was eveant.

Our helpful little travel agent from yesterday hadn’t mentioned anything about a stop-over and neither could we see it written on the ticket. Our new-found friends were unmoved; my girlfriend couldn’t go on that flight. They phoned the travel agent and she apologised. They phoned someone, who may have been an Australian consul, and he said it was correct. Now, obviously, as we were still appealing the decision made by the Australian immigration people, they weren’t about to issue any visas. We were, by the looks of it, stuck. We would have to live the rest of our days in Brunei. Not too bad, you might say, except that our luggage was on its way to Auckland. Or soon would be. Everyone went into panic mode and, eventually, our luggage decided to stay with us but what now? I seem to have said that phrase quite a bit in these blogs and, rest assured, it will be appearing quite a bit more.

We returned to our hotel, they luckily still had rooms, left our bags and went off to see that friendly, though not particularly efficient, travel agent. She was most apologetic, which helped a bit. After a long search, she discovered that only Air New Zealand and Singapore Air fly to Auckland without a stop-over. My thoughts were that if they could, why didn’t everyone else or that maybe those two were cutting it a bit fine on fuel, but, when do my thoughts matter. The Air New Zealand fare was enormous so that left Singapore Air. Our travel agent said her company, and it was hers, would pay the difference for our ticket. All was sorted. We would fly Singapore Air non-stop to New Zealand.

Correct, except Singapore Air didn’t fly out of Brunei. Their flights, not surprisingly really, went from Singapore. Now we had to fly backwards to Singapore and then on to Auckland. Are you keeping up? Good. All was done, except, there were no flights for four days. We had no choice; we had to spend four more days in Brunei.

And so we did. It gave us a chance to have a better look at this strange mix of a country. The Sultan, who rules Brunei, is amazingly rich. The people who live there, are not. We wandered around some of the little huts, really just shacks, which are built on stilts above the river and were amazed to find one of them was a school. Inquisitive as ever, we popped in. And that’s all I can tell you. I really don’t remember anything else about the school. I suppose the stress that we had been going through meant that for a while, until matters were sorted for good, most things were superficial. And, no criticism intended, but, as the more senior, male and English-speaking, I was always the one to sort things out.

I do, though, remember, just by looking at these pictures and the ones I put up before, being so amazed at the different lifestyles. A highly ornate mosque and these shacks; it didn’t seem to fit. Yet later we discovered some facts which put the whole thing into perspective. I couldn’t suggest the people were unhappy because there was no sign of that at all. I couldn’t suggest that they wanted anything more than they had and I do remember thinking that everything is relative. We, in the so-called western world, are now almost programmed to want materialistic gain. We judge our success by what we acquire and sadly it isn’t knowledge or happiness that we mark success on. I wrote a song once and called it ‘Third World Man’. I must see if I still have that but I remember three lines.

I’m a third world man; I’m a third world man
As wealthy as others I may not be
But I’m not what I have, I’m just me

How nice to be just me, unencumbered by the need for possessions for the sake of possessing. OK, if I had no possession, then you wouldn’t be reading this, I agree. But I like to think that my possessions are a necessity for my lifestyle, not to provide more comfort and to have something bigger and better than the next man. I had a long chat a few nights ago with a friend, a friend I have never met, but someone who I respect totally. Always, always, when we speak, I finish the conversation feeling happier about who I am. To coin her phrase, slightly, I love living in Tashyland.

Don’t get me wrong, it doesn’t mean being wrapped up in yourself. On the contrary, you are very aware of others but the place you are in, the person you are and the thoughts and plans that you have, are borne out of a desire to fulfil your life, your way, not out of a need to have more than someone else. Yet again, my way is my decision comes to mind. And do take a look because, as close as I can get, I am living my dream. A dream to be happy and enjoy every day.

Had a facebook chat too once and was asked if I was enjoying what I do. My reply:- ME: I’ve learnt to enjoy everything – makes life so much better HER: I like that attitude! I wish I could apply that ME: Oh you can only apply that, especially after you’ve spent years hating so many things that go wrong – trust me – keep thinking how much you enjoy living and one day, when you’re very very old it will all be enjoyable

As I said at the time, applying comes with experience. And experience, funnily enough, allows you to forget so many things you have been taught or even brainwashed with. Sorry father that one ends with a preposition just to prove you didn’t brainwash me. And that’s what I saw in Brunei. Happy people who I nearly thought couldn’t be, because they had no possessions. You see, even I can get programmed.

Later that night, maybe to celebrate the fact that we might be leaving one day, we went out to find a restaurant for a meal. Brunei is a dry country; you can’t buy alcohol. However, Brunei is aware of the value of tourism so, as I understood it, restaurants are allowed to serve alcohol to non-Bruneians. We were told that if a Bruneian is eating with you, providing they don’t object, you may also drink alcohol. The problem, for our Italian restaurant owner, was that he couldn’t buy alcohol in Brunei and every two weeks or so had to drive across the border into Malaysia and stock up. He told us he had two fridges at home, one for food and one for drink. I remember the meal was very good.

We now had extra days in Brunei. The first one we decided to spend away from the capital and head for a beach. Someone told us about the Empire Hotel and Country Club, which was a rather select complex on the coast. Not wishing to look as though we should be there, we took a bus. And this was when I wondered whether Brunei had solved the unemployment problems besetting European countries. You see the bus had a driver, a conductor, who helped people on and off and told the driver when to stop, a guy who sold tickets once you were on and a ticket inspector. All on the same bus and, I had a feeling, all from the same family. I had no way of knowing whether they were all salaried or whether the driver’s mates had come along to help him out but, as with most people we met in Brunei, they seemed very happy.

I had noticed this sharing of labour principle around the shops. We had been in several where the people who seemed to be helping out would outnumber all the customers, sometimes by a large margin. It seemed as though many people in Brunei didn’t need to work so they turned up to help other family members. This view had also been given to us by the Italian restaurateur who had fed us the previous night.

The Empire Hotel and Country Club, when we finally got there, was something else. You almost felt unfit to be there. It was so clean and clinical. We wondered whether they might give us a sponsored night before we had to leave and so we arranged a little chat with the manager. He was very pleasant but explained that this month they were fully booked but if we ever came back, he would be happy to put us up for a couple of nights if we could give him a little write-up. He told us, however, that he was more than happy for us to stay for a while and have a look around.

We eventually found our way out on to the beach and, as we had set out for a beach anyway, were well-prepared for a little cooling swim. The beach was empty and all we could see were two guys out on jet-skis. But, no sooner had we attired ourselves appropriately in our swimwear, than the manager came running out to us. My first thought was that there was too much of my girlfriend visible. I know that many Muslim countries do not allow various parts of the body to be exposed in public, or maybe in private, I don’t know that one. She was wearing a perfectly acceptable bikini by European standards.

But that wasn’t the reason for his concern. He had come to warn us to be careful if we went out too deep in the water. No, there weren’t sharks; no there wasn’t a strong current; no there wasn’t a sudden deep shelf. The problem was the guys on the jet-skis. Apparently, according to the manager, they were sons of the Sultan and they weren’t very good at avoiding bathers. I don’t know how many they had hit to date or whether the manager was unnecessarily cautious, but we took note.

We spent a few hours there and then took a taxi back to our hotel. The driver was very talkative and filled us in on some aspects of life in Brunei for the ordinary citizen. After this I could see why the people were so happy despite their apparent lack of materialistic possessions. He said that medical care in Brunei cost £1, whatever needed to be done. It was the same charge for an ingrowing toenail as for a brain tumour. If they were unable to deal with your complaint in Brunei, the government paid for you to go overseas.

He also said that every man, when he reached maturity, was given a piece of land by the Sultan. Essentially, I think I am remembering correctly, it was a loan at 0% that didn’t really need paying back. He did add that the Sultan was beginning to run out of land and that this practice might have to stop soon. We asked him if he was happy; he said yes. We asked him to define happiness and he said, ‘living in Brunei’, which really sums everything up.

On our final day in Brunei we decided to take a river trip. I have no idea why because I seem to remember that we boarded a boat, went up river, possibly straying close to the Malaysian border, saw lots of locals fishing and then got off the boat at a small village. We walked around the village, which had one shop, and then got back on the boat as it came back down river. I think there were more photos but I don’t have them. I seriously doubt if anyone does either.

The next day, we were up earlier and made our way to the airport. We crept through customs but no voice shouted for all Polish people to come back and we left Brunei. If you remember we didn’t go straight to Auckland but flew backwards, well in the wrong direction, to Singapore where we hung around for a couple of hours within the airport. My understanding about the size of Singapore probably means we saw at least half the country. Finally, after a fuel-economy flight, it must be interesting to lift and coast in a plane, we touched down in Auckland. But you won’t because I am going to take you somewhere else first.

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