58
BRUNEI
Miri, Sarawak – Tutong, Brunei - 121km
Venturing further east soon brought me to the border and into tiny Brunei. I say
TINY as the distance from the border to where one could get the ferry to Sabah
was at most one hundred and fifty kilometres.
Brunei was quite remarkable. Firstly, the country is a Sultanate and an incredibly
conservative one. Secondly, Brunei is a wealthy country and home to one of the
richest men in the world. The Sultan of Brunei is worth a cool US$22 billion, all
thanks to the discovery of oil. Education and Healthcare were free, houses, cars
and even pilgrimages to Mecca were subsidised, and taxation on personal income
was unheard of.
This all meant plenty of fancy and fast cars. The problem was that only some
owners of fast cars were good drivers. Add alcohol to the equation, and cycling
could become downright dangerous. Brunei was a dry country but not all adhered
to this rule, judging by the number of empty beer cans next to the tarmac.
A threatening storm loomed all day, but nothing came of it besides a few drops.
Seria, the first town, was a convenient place to draw a few Brunei dollars, which I
considered artificially low to the US dollar. So back on my mobile home I
meandered along, reaching Tulong around 16h00 and deemed it an excellent
place to overnight. The single hotel in town was hellishly expensive, but this was
Brunei.
The second day of Hari Raya Aidilfitri caused all businesses to shut, apart from a
tiny supermarket. I therefore had to dig into my emergency food stockpile. It
does come in handy from time to time.