BRUNEI :Bandar Seri Begawan

Weekend trip to Bandar Seri Begawan, Brunei Darussalam.
July 2011 


Flight    : AirAsia AK 262 KUL-BSB
Aircraft : Airbus A320-200
Reg.     : 9M-AFU 

First glimpse of Negara Brunei Darussalam. Looks like an army camp down there.

Sultan of Brunei's private Boeing 747-400 reg V8-ALI, stored at Royal Brunei Airlines hangar.

A bevy of Royal Brunei Airlines aircrafts docked at their home turf. A couple of Airbus A319s on the foreground and two recently acquired Boeing B777-200ERs (leased from Singapore Airlines) for long-haul flights. Note the 'Shell' signage on the aerobridge. It seems that the company has a monopoly on the oil production here.

Most signboards have Malay translation in jawi script.

Aerial view of Bandar Seri Begawan, courtesy of a poster in the terminal building.

Waiting for our ride to the hotel. This particular signboard somehow sparked my interest to seek more translated jawi signages.

Close to our hotel. Probably the tallest building in BSB.

A recently closed olden single-screen type cinema. Last movie shown - 'Avatar'.

60's looking buildings.

Sultan Omar Ali Saifuddin Mosque, viewed from the shopping complex.

A closer view.

Night shot. Went inside but unfortunately not allowed to take any photographs.

Brightly lit streets at night. No, this is not your typical night in BSB. The whole town was decorated in conjunction with the Sultan's birthday which will be celebrated in a few days.

Speed boats plying Sungai Brunei. They provide fast, cheap and convenient transportation service for the folks living in Kampong Ayer, just across the river from BSB. We ended up boarding one to go to the Kampong Ayer Cultural & Tourism Gallery.

Kampong Ayer Cultural & Tourism Gallery.

Neat building but rather bare internally.

Kampong Ayer. The whole village is on stilts and sits over Sungai Brunei. They even have their own school, fire station and petrol station.

BSB, viewed from Kampong Ayer while we waited for our boat ride.

Brunei Water City Mosque in the background.

A full load of tourists. The boat operator must be grinning.

View of Sungai Kianggeh, next to the 'Tamu' (market). Notice the Venician style barber poles. Boat drivers utilises them to assist passengers boarding and leaving the boats.

A busy scene at Sungai Kianggeh, with the boat operators ferrying shopper to the 'tamu'.

One of the entrances to the bridge leading to Tamu Kianggeh. A weekend market selling mainly local produce.

A local fishmonger. Look! he has a few sharks for sale on his makeshift table.

Vegetable seller. Nothing out of the ordinary for sale here.

A stall selling various types of rice, local delicacies and colourful tudung sajis, a type of food cover made of dyed and dried pandanus leaves with bits of coloured paper added.

Took a local bus for a round trip around the town, which took us back to the terminal. They were clean, comfortable (air conditioned) and the fare was quite cheap. Buses are patronised mainly by foreign workers.

Jame'Asr Hassanil Bolkiah Mosque.

Jawi script for McD.

'Pizza Hut', directly translated.

The piece de resistance. The Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf is directly translated to Biji Kopi dan Daun Teh. We had a laugh.

End of our short tour of BSB. Back at the airport for our return flight.

A couple of souvenir shops in the departure lounge.

Departure Lounge.

The bird that's going to fly us home. Air Asia Airbus A320-200 reg. 9M-AHR operating as flight AK 267 BSB-KUL. Glad she was on schedule.

It is very difficult to explain, but this trip somehow transported me back in time. To a small town in Malaysia, sometime in the 70's. The town, the shops, the pace of the locals, the street decorations adorning the town (due to the birthday celebration) and almost everything else.  Is Brunei worth a visit? Yes, if you have never been here, but not worth a repeat. Just my thoughts.