Friday 20th June
So far Brunei has
been fascinating and…exhausting.
Fascinating
because of things like this:
Now would you
expect to find such a pork-laden menu in one of the most Muslim countries in
the world?
This
Usually in Muslim
countries dogs are totally absent, or they are strange, scrawny, haunted
looking beasties. There are two dogs at
the yacht club which are frisky, cheeky, glossy and obviously very well loved.
and this
What on earth does
this mean?? There were several of these
mysterious posters in the customs and immigration building, where we spent an
hour or so checking in yesterday. (We
also spent an hour or so checking out of Labuan first thing in the morning…good
thing we find the whole process so interesting – for example, just how many copies of our crew list are
they going to want this time?? And just why do we have to go to the Harbour
Master then Immigration then Customs then back to the Harbour Master and back
to Customs?? 2XS is leaving a huge
paper trail all through the South East Asian region…)
The yacht club near
where we are anchored is grandly named Royal Yacht Club of Brunei, although it
is not at all grand, and is indeed very pleasant and unassuming, with a nice
little washing machine below the verandah where you can wash your filthy
diesel-stained clothes for FREE. (Bliss!) Almost the first thing I noticed was this
sign:
All very
interesting…Friday is the Muslim Sabbath, and the Sultan has degreed that NO
business AT ALL are to be open between 12-2 on Fridays. Apparently the Chinese shops, and the Royal
Yacht Cub of Brunei, would open for business as usual and…oh deary me…the
devout weren’t devout enough and they would wander around the shops instead of
going to the mosques. So…everything is
shut down. Easy solution!
Last night we had
a long visit from Sean in a small canoe.
Sean is from North Carolina and travels the world on his tiny yacht –
only 21 feet…with no mod cons such as radio, or dinghy. He gets very offended because although he is
very welcome in Third World countries, she doesn’t get such a warm welcome, for
example, in New Zealand, where they tell him his boat is NOT safe and that they
are going to confiscate it. He paid
$1,000 (US) for it and it certainly gets him where he wants to go, across the
oceans blue. He has a whole ecosystem
aboard – tomato plants, spiders, ants, stick insects, and he is very happy,
after four years of happy sailing – he is 28…
Just behind Sean
you can see an inoffensive low scrubby island.
The Yacht Club manager, John, told me that this will soon disappear
completely and it will be covered in its entirety with an enormous oil
refinery… Brunei is something like the 12th richest country (per
capita) in the world…OIL!
Incidentally the
price of diesel here is 31 cents per litre…and it has not gone up in the past
twenty years! We have taken advantage of
this in a big way and now, as I write, poor Pete is so tired he is lying on one
of the deck cushions with a cold cloth pressed to his forehead and he has
actually drunk a large glass of water!!
With no blackcurrant juice to disguise the taste!!
At 8.15 we were
picked up by our delightful new friend, Zahir.
Zahir is very affectionate
as can be seen in
this photo of him hugging Jacqui. He
calls us all Mummy and Daddy…and he is full of information, and of
queries. His task was to take us to a
large international supermarket on the outskirts of Bandar Seri Begawan, and
then to a petrol station to fill up with 400 litres of diesel…We had an hour or
so of fun in the supermarket – hot English mustard!! Australian beef stock! Cruskits!!
It was also very interesting looking out at the country. Many big, flash houses, also acres of
low-cost housing, provided for the people by the Sultan at very low cost. I was so hot in the back of the car I didn’t
have the energy to lift my camera, unfortunately…
Once we got back
to the yacht club the fun ceased. We
managed to get the boat in to the jetty, which was a total blessing, so we
didn’t have to take the twenty big heavy jerrycans in our deflating dinghy –
this would have been a lot to expect. But we did have to take them from the
beach to the boat. I found a wobbly
wheelbarrow which made life easier but it was still very hard work. And once the jerrycans were at their
destination…well they had to be heaved up to an appropriate height and then
siphoned into the fuel tanks. Pete
heaved the cans while I squatted on an upturned bucked holding the hose in the
funnel. For HOURS!!! (There are NO PHOTOS. Any photos would have been just too ghastly
to behold…neither of us looked happy…)
 |
| Pete is exhausted!! |
So here is a photo
of some of the hundreds of tugs cheerily bobbing around in the harbour at
Labuan.
At 2.30 Zahir had
finished his devotions and he came back to get us for Diesel Trip #2. We had only just finished siphoning off the
first lot…He stayed for a while, helping Pete heave the jerrycans onto the
deck. He had taken a fancy to us, and
rigorously questioned us about our families.
What he was looking for, it transpired, was a single white male… He was
fascinated by the concept of Michael… Because he has a lovely, pretty,
accomplished sister, with long eyelashes and pale skin – their mother is
Russian, although the family has come to Brunei from Qatar. Sanja is apparently ready to be the perfect
wife and mother, and she would adore her new Mummy and Daddy…I said it wouldn’t
work because she is a Muslim and he was very offended. I
didn’t think you would be so prejudiced!
This is NOT good! I tried to
explain that t would be difficult for Sanja, living in a strange country,
married to a man who doesn’t; share her deeply-held faith, but he brushed all
of this aside. It was only later in the
afternoon that I found the clincher…Zahir,
I must tell you that my son Michael drinks alcohol. In fact we all do… Sanja wouldn’t like this! He is an intelligent bloke and he had to
concede defeat…
Tomorrow we are
going to motor up the river into the centre of Bandar Seri Begawan and then
back out again, to check out – back, yes to Harbour Master, Customs,
Immigration, where we have so many new friends!! And then…back to the Malaysian part of
Borneo.
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