Is Brunei Really Asia’s Most Boring Country?
Backpackers claim that Brunei's the most boring country in Asia. After speaking with numerous travellers, and hearing comments such as "Brunei's only worth visiting if you're counting countries", Alun went to see for himself. In this episode, we hear why Brunei is one of Asia's most misunderstood destinations.
Stay tuned for Tales of a Trip, as Karl Watson shares a rollercoaster of a story! We find out the link between his YouTube channel, his wedding day, and altitude sickness in Tibet! Subscribe to Karl's YouTube channel if you haven't already; he makes fabulous travel videos! Karlwatsondocs: www.youtube.com/@karlwatsondocs
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TIMESTAMPS:
00:00 - Intro
02:16 - Getting to Brunei
03:05 - Backpackers' Brunei reviews
06:28 - Visiting Labuan: WW2 sites
15:18 - Arriving in Brunei: Is it worth visiting?
32:06 - Alun's Brunei review
33:24 - Tales of a Trip: Karl Watson
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TRANSCRIPT:
Alun:
[0:02] Hello and welcome to this episode of Tripology. It's the only backpacking show where two best friends call each other up and talk all about travel. I'm Alun and I'm here with the ever overlooked Adam.
Adam:
[0:18] As you may have noticed guys if you're watching this podcast I'm three different backgrounds into three different episodes so you may well deduce from that that I am in fact on the road i'm traveling around in my van i've just got back from a three-day 65 kilometer hike my legs feel like they're about to explode and today i drove 450 kilometers in my van but if i can be here so can you that's.
Alun:
[0:42] Right here on a tuesday best day of the week these days good old tuesday i hope that you're accruing lots of stories adam to tell on the podcast in subsequent weeks.
Adam:
[0:53] The stories are being accrued mate i'm writing notes i'm writing mental notes and literal ones on a pad uh, experiences are being had there have been some mishaps there have been some failures there have been some funny moments there have been some amazing achievements and i am only two weeks into what is going to be a two and a half month maybe even a three month trip so loads of stuff to talk to you about i do have some funny things well i mean one of them was quite funny the other one wasn't two little stories in the patreon section so i'll put a link in the description to the lost and found one of them involves me being stopped by a very nice police officer might i say and the other one involves my windscreen and a rock the size of a baseball baseball.
Alun:
[1:33] Sized rock well i think what we'll do is let you live out your adventure and then you can give it to us like a chronicling story once you're off of the road because essentially adam i've been traveling pretty intensely for the last month and a half and the stories that i accrued whilst traveling, rapidly leaving my brain and being exchanged with new ones such that we simply have to discuss them with quite a lot of immediacy so that I don't forget them.
Adam:
[2:01] No, I think that's fair. I think that's fair. I think we should do things in order. I think that stories are better when they're fresh, when they're current. And, you know, on last week's episode, you did tease that you were going to Brunei. So it's absolutely something we all want to hear about, mate.
Alun:
[2:15] Yeah, I finished seeing The Gingerest of Apes. My eye was healed up. I decided that I was going to go to Brunei. And I decided that the bus wasn't for me because it's ever so long, ever so many passport stamps, same price, didn't want to fly. So I looked at ways to do it. And there's only one way that you can get to Brunei without flying or taking a bus. It's the ferry. Now, the ferry only leaves on the weekends.
Adam:
[2:45] Oh, interesting.
Alun:
[2:47] And you'll be pleased to know that my completion of Kinabatangan River and seeing the orangutan finished there. on the weekend. So it was perfect. No problem at all. Take a bus back to Kota Kinabalu and begin my journey to Brunei. Now, I asked people all over Borneo, have you been to Brunei? What did you think of Brunei? Would you recommend Brunei? And I got the same response from almost everyone. Can you guess what the response might have been?
Adam:
[3:20] I can, because what I'm doing really is thinking about what I would say in this situation. Now, really, what I would say is, surely everywhere you can have a good time. It depends on your experience. It's completely subjective, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But if you've met people that have actually been and have still said that it's not worth going... That's a bit of a shame. Maybe that was it, mate.
Alun:
[3:46] That's what I heard, Adam. I heard unanimously people say Brunei is Asia's most boring country. I heard them say there is no point in going to Brunei unless you're counting countries.
Adam:
[3:59] Oh, my goodness.
Alun:
[4:00] Yeah, I know. It's scathing.
Adam:
[4:02] How dare someone say that to you? Counting countries. You, of all people, counting countries.
Alun:
[4:07] I said, I'm thinking about going to Brunei. They went, if you want to add another country to your list, then go. but there's not much to see or do there.
Adam:
[4:14] He said yeah that's why i'm in this game yeah i'm just trying to get to 197 or whatever it is i mean that is a strange phenomena isn't it i was listening to a podcast the other day actually another travel show um about how the weird competitiveness, of counting countries it almost it's so it's so reductive to have to have um to celebrate having been to every country if some of those have been for just a matter of hours yeah i think i mean it's a completely different take on what we think travel is i suppose absolutely.
Alun:
[4:47] I actually know that there's some people that count countries including their stay in airports during layovers which is so catastrophically bonkers.
Adam:
[4:58] That maybe.
Alun:
[5:00] That's why we've built this whole podcast because we've built this as a platform and if right now i am communicating to someone who has ever told anyone that they've been to a number of countries and that number has been inflated by airport stays, You need to go back and do the maths because you ain't been to as many as you say you have. And it's almost like cultural appropriation to say that you have.
Adam:
[5:24] The best thing about Brunei is the airport. Did you hear anybody said that? Yeah.
Alun:
[5:28] Oh, you took a ferry, did you? Well, can you count it then? So, sorry, I had all this in my mind, Adam, but I thought, if it all, I'm going to find out for myself, I'm going to go with an open mind. i will say that it all all that was to persuade me that i didn't need such a long time in brunei i'll give myself breathing room maybe three full days in brunei i did the old ai google what to do in brunei in three days
build me itinerary and it did say yeah on the first day do this on the second day do this on the third day just prepare for your outbound trip and relax so i thought okay three days probably is enough to get an overview of the country go.
Adam:
[6:18] Back to Malaysia early.
Alun:
[6:19] Yes nice one i thought on the third day ask yourself some existential questions about why you've ended up here with an extra 24 hours but first i had to actually get there mate and a lot of people have told me that the journey is as important as the destination and that cannot be more true than when you're taking a ferry. You can do the ferry to Brunei from Kota Kinabalu in one day. You can zip to Labuan in the morning and then zip to Brunei in the evening and then you're there. One day, you're ferried all the way across and you're in the country of Brunei. But I thought, But Labuan sounds interesting of its own merit. Why not ferry to Labuan in the morning, spend 24 hours in Labuan, and then make it to Brunei the next day? A little bit of slow travel.
Adam:
[7:14] Okay. Was it a hop on, hop off? Was it a question of money? Did you have to buy two separate tickets? How is that working?
Alun:
[7:19] It's going to be the same price anyway, isn't it? It's two separate tickets.
Adam:
[7:22] Okay.
Alun:
[7:22] You've got to buy them. One to Labuan, one to Brunei. Split it up. Now, Labuan is interesting and famous because it's duty-free and it's close to Brunei. Brunei, of course, a country where alcohol is entirely prohibited. Labuan, just a short ferry ride away, and alcohol is tax-free.
Adam:
[7:42] Nice, duty-free, my favourite kind of duty. So, I mean, what does this mean then? You're having a bit of a knees up on the cards before you have to go dry?
Alun:
[7:52] No, as we know, I don't like to drink with strangers, so I didn't partake in Labuan, but I was there for historical events. interest because Labuan was occupied by the Japanese in World War II between the years of 1942 and 1945. It became the seat of Japanese occupation and also the seat of the Allied forces confronting of the Japanese during World War II and it was the site of the Japanese surrender in Borneo. So there's a lot of interesting World War II historical sites including the place where the surrender was issued there's a memorial there and there's also a war cemetery with over a thousand australian and british troops that gave their lives during world war ii for the cause of freedom adam my.
Adam:
[8:45] God did you know all this going in or was that something that chat gpt or uh any other resources kind of coughed up when you did a bit of research.
Alun:
[8:51] No online you'll hear a lot about the duty free less so about the world war ii significance but it's very apparent when you're there that it's a place of great historical interest and it was of course also a site of uh it was you know it's a british colony and a lot of like a mining place and there's like a lot of interesting history in labuan wow so i i would i don't think i'd recommend it to your average traveler but i think if you have a historical interest there is enough to do there to justify a slower roll towards brunei.
Adam:
[9:22] Yeah yeah if you're that way inclined i mean it sounds great It sounds like there's so much going on there that it maybe should be better publicized, perhaps, for people that are interested in that sort of thing. Maybe people who are would already know, perhaps.
Alun:
[9:34] Well, it's in the early stages of people kind of trying to promote itself as a place that people should go. And faces some infrastructure issues as a part of that. Because there's a problem, and this is throughout Malaysia, actually, but it really was exacerbated in Labuan. where oftentimes you'll get a grab to a location. Grab is the local ride hailing app, right? Like Uber or something like that.
Adam:
[10:02] Yeah, yeah. But is it usually motorbikes or almost exclusively motorbikes?
Alun:
[10:05] In Malaysia, it can't be motorbikes. It's illegal for it to be motorbikes. In Malaysia, it has to be cars.
Adam:
[10:11] Oh, wow. Okay, there's a little tidbit for you.
Alun:
[10:14] Yeah. So you'll take a grab out to a place that you want to be. And then oftentimes, there will be no grabs back from that place.
Adam:
[10:24] Oh, okay. Interesting. Interesting.
Alun:
[10:27] I didn't realize that. So I was in the center of Labuan. I thought, oh, I'm going to go across the island to Surrender Point, the place where the Japanese commander in Borneo lay over his surrender to the commander of the British army. That sounds interesting. I'll go there. Took a grab out. My driver said to me, do you want me to wait for you? And I thought, well, certainly not. I would like to explore Surrender Point at my own leisure. There's a beach there. There's a memorial place. I'm going to just relax and then I'll hail another grab. you know I've got a saley eSIM in my phone so I can hail a grab from anywhere sore surrender point, And then tried to get a ride back.
Adam:
[11:08] Nothing doing.
Alun:
[11:08] There wasn't any grabs around. No bus routes.
Adam:
[11:11] That's really strange because you're not even somewhere that isn't a tourist destination. I mean, it's a point of interest in Labuan anyway.
Alun:
[11:19] I mean, I probably was the only tourist that day.
Adam:
[11:24] Oh, fair enough. No, I just mean it's funny that it's on the way to Brunei anyway. Just logistically, things pass through it. And of its own merit, it's actually worth seeing. people i guess there's loads of people that just passed through but what were you doing then you just.
Alun:
[11:37] Well so just to give you context on that there was one other tourist on my ferry to Labuan yeah and they were going to brunei that same day yeah i don't think many people stop in labawan right.
Adam:
[11:49] Okay i mean it sounds like a bit of a shame so what are you doing then you uh you're in surrender point.
Alun:
[11:54] Well what would you do i.
Adam:
[11:55] I've hitchhiked in malaysia before so i'd probably stick out a thumb see how far i got.
Alun:
[11:59] Tried that i i tried that and normally that is quite successful in malaysia i actually have a story that i'd love to tell in the patreon section about me hitchhiking in malaysia so i tried that for a little while ultimately i pretty much just had to walk halfway until i was close enough within the grab pool to to get back to my uh hotel.
Adam:
[12:20] No which is the whole time you know what you used to do when we were together in pakistan So I just like walk backwards with a big smile, you know, with the thumb out. Just surely someone's going to pick me up after 45 minutes, you're thinking this is...
Alun:
[12:31] There were so few cars, mate. Not even that worked.
Adam:
[12:34] God. That's a bit of a shame. What sort of distance are we talking then?
Alun:
[12:37] I reckon I probably walked for an hour.
Adam:
[12:39] And then you were inside the catchment area.
Alun:
[12:41] Yeah. And I kept on putting the pin, you know, you can set your pickup destination. I kept on putting it ahead of me. And I was like, I'll be there in 15 minutes. Well, maybe that's in the grab pool.
Adam:
[12:50] That's so funny. There's no small towns or anything like that in the vicinity where the surrender point is?
Alun:
[12:55] The whole thing is a small town mate yeah weird okay but there you go that's labawan i think uh worth uh it was a point of interest for me to be there just from a historical stage and cool to see like war cemeteries outside of europe you know i went to the battlefields when i was a history student at college and stuff so it was really good to uh to well it wasn't good i suppose it was tragic there was a thousand dead bodies and graves that were paid for by the commonwealth but it was um you know it was of interest to see that and it gave me some perspective about the the wide reaching effects of war and conflict i think too often being a european you kind of think of the world war ii from a very eurocentric perspective so it was interesting yeah.
Adam:
[13:43] That's amazing i would have liked to have been there with you because you are good with stuff like that whether it's religion or history and that sort of stuff you are such a great person to to be walking around and experiencing those things with so i'm glad you got to do that before you went off to brunei where
The Journey to Brunei
Adam:
[13:57] i imagine there was very little of that.
Alun:
[14:00] Yeah i mean let's talk about brunei that's next i got up in the next morning to get a ferry but first let's engage in a little bit of capitalism.
Alun:
[15:18] Okay, so I take the ferry to Brunei. What a wonderful place. And I quickly, I mean, I realize straight off the bat that this is going to be logistically a little bit of a nightmare. When I'm the only tourist on the ferry, everyone gets off the ferry.
Adam:
[15:34] Yeah, yeah.
Alun:
[15:35] Goes through security like customs, you know. They have to announce if they're bringing any alcohol for personal consumption because it's illegal to buy or sell alcohol in Brunei. Lots of people go to the customs queue. I'm first out because I'm like, I've got nothing to declare, baby. And all the Brunei people, the only reason they're on that ferry was because they did have some stuff to declare.
Adam:
[15:57] Oh, interesting. What's someone from Brunei called?
Alun:
[16:00] An alcoholic.
Adam:
[16:03] I don't know what it is. If you do know, send us a message on Instagram at Tripology Podcast. A Bruneian is what I'm going to go with.
Alun:
[16:11] I think Bruneian is nice.
Adam:
[16:13] Yeah, a Bruneian.
Alun:
[16:14] And if it's not that, probably should be. But I always get confused because someone from Leeds is called a Leodensian.
Adam:
[16:19] That's amazing.
Alun:
[16:20] You know, someone from Manchester. Mancunian. So sometimes they just break free from the constraints of what you would think it would be. Like a Londoner.
Adam:
[16:28] Yeah, yeah. I didn't tell you, but a couple of weeks ago, I bumped into someone who had a very similar accent to you and your family.
Alun:
[16:37] That's interesting because I don't have an accent.
Adam:
[16:39] And then the lady that I was talking to, she asked me where I was from. And I said, oh, I'm just south of London or whatever. I said, are you from Stockport? She went, uh, yeah. How did you know that? I was like, oh, my best mate's from Stockport. So I kind of fine-tuned the accent. She was like, oh, my God, that's amazing. That's the first time anyone's ever pinned it. I was like, oh.
Alun:
[16:58] Oh, that's lovely. Well, tell her thank you from me.
Adam:
[17:03] Thank you from me. That's funny. Anyway, Brunei, much more interesting. Sorry.
Alun:
[17:09] So there I am. Then everyone goes out of the ferry terminal and immediately gets in their own private cars that had been waiting for them all in the car park.
Adam:
[17:21] Love it rollers bentley's you name it.
Alun:
[17:23] Now i'm in a situation because grab ain't working in brunei mate everyone's on a private car i say oh excuse me ticket officer i wouldn't there wouldn't happen to be a bus or something that i could take into brunei my host my hostel is sort of quite central just looking to take a bus He went, no, everyone has private cars in Brunei, sir.
Adam:
[17:46] Oh, dear.
Alun:
[17:46] I went, oh, like, how would I... how would i get to the city center he said oh you'll have to hire a private car oh yeah wow um and i said okay well you know how do i do that he said we have a uh app here called dart that people use i said okay he said you can pay me to use the wi-fi here and then you can download dart and then um there's no cash machine here so you'll have to top it up with some credits the a dart app and then use that to negotiate with the driver to take you where you need to go, so it was all a bit of a nightmare mate i was in that ferry terminal for longer
Getting Around in Brunei
Alun:
[18:24] than i care to admit logistically solving the problem for.
Adam:
[18:27] As cheap as you possibly could i know you're inquisitive and that sort of stuff you probably were looking for other ways or when he told you that were you like that's categoric surely that's the only way you thought surely.
Alun:
[18:38] You're not you're not joking mate i got on that dart app i was messaging drivers one of them said oh you're quite far and i said well why don't you pick up some other people and then pay me some cash back and i negotiated with the driver for me to pay her all the money on the dart app ecosystem but then she picked up other people and gave me some of the cash that they gave her to get the thing i was in the front with her like wheeling and dealing some brunei dollars under the dashboard it was It's great, mate.
Adam:
[19:09] That's brilliant. That's cool. It is the Brunei dollar is the currency, is it?
Alun:
[19:13] Yeah, and it's pegged to the Singaporean dollar.
Adam:
[19:15] Oh, okay. Okay, which maybe even... higher at the moment, stronger, than the British pound.
Alun:
[19:24] It's not.
Adam:
[19:25] Is it not?
Alun:
[19:25] No, no, but it's high.
Adam:
[19:26] Yeah.
Alun:
[19:26] It is high, but it's not stronger. It's like, I think it's like...
Adam:
[19:29] Maybe I'm getting confused with the Kuwaiti Dinar.
Alun:
[19:30] Maybe you are, mate. It's a common thing. Oftentimes, people have come unstuck in Brunei because they've tried to pay for something. They've thought, oh, that's a bit expensive. And they go, oh, I'm thinking of the Kuwaiti Dinar. Fuck.
Adam:
[19:40] If I've got that wrong, then I'll get... But anyway, so you're already setting up businesses in Brunei. Love to hear it.
Alun:
[19:47] Yeah, so I've got a little taxi business. I go to the hostel, which is the most unusual hostel I've ever stayed in in my life. It's completely self-checking. And instead of a series of dorm beds, each room has its own little glass box, which you can unlock using a key that's been placed for you if you've pre-booked. And then you open up your glass box and inside is just a single bed. And you get inside and switch a fan on and you're sort of ensconced in this glass coffin.
Adam:
[20:17] Yeah, it sounds impersonal and... Is it a little bit voyeuristic? Can you kind of have a little cheeky peek at other people?
Alun:
[20:26] No, thankfully they have curtains that wrap around the glass box.
Adam:
[20:30] Like a David Blaine trick or something.
Alun:
[20:33] Yeah, I like to think...
Adam:
[20:36] A fucking David Blaine magic trick in Brunei.
Alun:
[20:39] Exactly, man. I like to think, you know, sometimes hostels' culture changes depending on the guests staying there. I like to think sometimes there's been enough people that they've gone, let's all just take our curtains down and just have a real sexy time with our boxes all naked let's fill these with water.
The Unique Hostel Experience
Adam:
[20:56] And present to be fish.
Alun:
[20:57] Yeah all that sort of thing mate going on but when i was there it was very above board apart from the fact that consistently people struggled with the check-in process so it wouldn't become uncommon for chinese tourists to come in and knock on all the glass boxes inquiring as to how they might check in and i became sort of a de facto check-in officer in that hostel and i would like relay i've learned quite a lot of mandarin and i'd be like shesha let me check you in baby ni hao.
Adam:
[21:27] Uh are we charging money for that as well i mean how does that sort of work you know time costs something right.
Alun:
[21:36] Yeah i was laundering the money that i made through the taxi business illegally funneling that through the chinese tourists are making a pretty penny but let me just give you a quick rundown of Brunei mate because let me tell you that I disagree with the opinion that Brunei isn't interesting I think Brunei is incredibly interesting people said there's nothing to do there is some stuff to do but I do agree there ain't that much to do, But I don't think the interesting thing about travel is doing things all the time.
Adam:
[22:12] Yeah, yeah, sure. So from a touristic sort of attraction, monuments and all this kind of stuff.
Alun:
[22:19] You're going to go to the Omar Ali Mosque, which is a really beautiful mosque. You're going to go to the Royal Regalia Museum and you're going to pay a boat driver to take you down this floating village.
Adam:
[22:33] Right.
Alun:
[22:33] And into the mangroves where you can see proboscis monkeys, you can see crocodiles. The village itself is a thousand years old.
Adam:
[22:40] Oh, wow.
Alun:
[22:41] And like all the houses are on stilts. And it's really quite interesting to see that. But once you've done those three things, you're probably about spent on things to do in Brunei.
Adam:
[22:54] You're back on chat, GPT. So Brunei, for me, in my head with absolutely no knowledge of the place, is it predominantly when people are talking about brunei they predominantly talking about the city itself and how big how big is the country or is there loads of suburbia suburban areas around that sort of sprawling other cities that we don't really hear about i just feel like it's it is one of those almost in my head correct me if i'm wrong dubai-esque places.
Alun:
[23:21] Yeah i mean the whole country you can get from end to end in like two hour drive and people very much stay within the one city sure right i even spoke to one of my taxi drivers and he said that his family lived like an hour away and he sees them maybe once a year because there's like no reason to leave the city i think what defines brunei is that the quality of life for the people that live there seems to be exceptionally high you know when you ask people you know sometimes taxi drivers are really good barometer for how a country's is and what it's like because like.
Adam:
[23:57] The big mac index.
Alun:
[23:58] It's a bit like the big mac index yeah exactly often i say to tax drivers what's your opinion of the country this taxi driver said everything's cheap the wages are good, We get free health care and free education and gifts from the Sultan, financial gifts from the Sultan. Life is incredibly easy here, he said.
Adam:
[24:19] Okay. All right. So, yeah, that sounds like a high quality of life. Sounds like everyone is living a good life, I mean, for taxi drivers in possibly almost every other country. It must be quite difficult.
Alun:
[24:32] Yeah, that's why they're a good barometer, I think, because taxi drivers are like people that are working all the time, have their ear to the pulse of like
Brunei's Quality of Life
Alun:
[24:41] what the Brunei people or whatever countries people are feeling. They're like working men, aren't they? And I think it was interesting to hear him say life is really easy in Brunei.
Adam:
[24:52] Is it quite, aside from your conversation with the taxi driver, is it quite obvious to see that in the streets?
Alun:
[24:56] It's absolutely pristine.
Adam:
[25:00] Yeah. Where was the last place you said was pristine? Was it Baku? Did you go somewhere in Azerbaijan that was like super clean or something like that?
Alun:
[25:07] Yeah, but even Baku, right? Like in Baku, there's pedestrians walking around and it's sort of like very Dubai-esque. In Brunei, everyone is in private vehicles. Everyone's driving safely. There's like incredible order. There's just people aren't out because it's very, very hot. So people go from air conditioned building to building. But that's juxtaposed with really cool nature. There's lots of botanical gardens and parks. The river itself is cleaned religiously by a Bangladeshi team, so it's a perfectly clean river. And the whole place just... is very ordered and structured in the way that i suppose happens if you essentially take malaysian culture add in a sprinkling of its own history of monarchy and sultanship and all that stuff you give them unlimited money through the mechanism of oil and natural gas and then ban extramarital sex and alcohol what you end up with is something like yeah brunei did.
Adam:
[26:12] It feel a little a bit surreal.
Alun:
[26:13] Yeah did.
Adam:
[26:15] It feel everything sort of what i'm imagining is almost las vegas-esque like um you know huge marble columns everything's super shiny well manicured well kept like uh.
Alun:
[26:29] Yeah but again it's las vegas if bringing drugs into the country meant the death penalty and you weren't allowed to have sex with anyone before marrying them and you weren't allowed to drink alcohol so So it's actually really different from Las Vegas. And also gambling's illegal. So actually, Adam, it's almost nothing like Las Vegas in a lot of ways.
Adam:
[26:47] Yeah. I mean, you have been to Las Vegas underage as well. So you're a great person to ask.
Alun:
[26:52] Yeah.
Food Adventures in Brunei
Adam:
[26:53] Do you have any food? What's going on in Brunei? Is it just Malaysian fare?
Alun:
[26:57] So this was my favourite thing about Brunei, mate, was the Gareng Night Market, where you go suddenly. And when you're walking, it's a strange thing as a traveller to be walking down the street at night and think i actually think it's more likely that i'll freak out and rob someone than it is that i'll be.
Adam:
[27:16] Robbed, like you're getting one of those oh maybe you know the name i don't know the name but this when you're in a high pressure situation possibly someone uh you know i don't want to tell the example that I usually use off air but anyway there was like a sales director I used to work for and I used to have this weird thought like I hope I don't, i hope i don't fuck anything up in in this conversation but even though i wouldn't but it's like this weird anxious thought that you give space to and it spirals you know like if you're standing at a balcony and you think oh i hope i don't jump off the balcony like why why would you yeah but you mean like i hope i don't just fucking rob someone now but it's more likely…
Alun:
[27:59] The French call it l’appel du vide the call to the void and yeah you're like walking down the street in brunei and everyone's so safe and nice and lovely so you just think like oh in a rare turn of events I'm the most dangerous person here.
Adam:
[28:13] Yeah weird you.
Alun:
[28:14] Get to the night market and there's like, Ah, that's where everyone is. Suddenly, everyone's out of the cars. You're in a hot, smoky night market with the best satay and food of all different shapes and sizes and drinks and bubble teas and fried lamb and rice and all sorts of beautiful things. I went in the night market with the strategy of, I'm just going to eat what everyone else has eaten. like i'm going to choose the most popular stand and and just queue for whatever the brunei people are choosing to have yeah decent strategy now i think it's a good strategy i walked past some of the most interesting things on the market you know there were like local brunei like fish sort of fried fish crackery things there was aforementioned all sorts of like grilled meats and fish and all that sort of stuff i went to the longest queue i could find right cued for like it was much longer than any other queue i thought this has got to be the fucking best thing brunei has to offer, everything else was almost immediate you could go and get it this was a a 10 minute queue yeah it was for fried chicken oh.
Adam:
[29:31] Just like um in in a batter.
Alun:
[29:34] Yeah just your bulk standard.
Adam:
[29:38] No brand or anything it was hopefully it was still like a an uncle frying it up in some oil was it but.
Alun:
[29:43] Yeah it was an uncle frying up in some oil but I mean it was just it's difficult to make that feel special if I'm honest and from then on I realized that if I was looking for quality food in Brunei the internet was going to be more discerning than the locals and it was the last time I trusted those locals with my dinner because it was just fried chicken mate so I decided that gadong night market every single night really.
Adam:
[30:08] Cool and what are you doing like youtube video best food brunei that's a sort of go-to uh of mine.
Alun:
[30:14] I ended up having a little bit of everything mate going around having all sorts of things there was one thing that i particularly wanted to to try in brunei and it's kind of the one national dish of brunei and it was very very difficult to find and the only place i could find that did it did it as a set menu for two so i had to gorge myself in order to try this thing very.
Adam:
[30:38] Nice you couldn't like share it with someone at the back of the queue for the fried chicken look mate you're going to be here for a long time trust me you're going to be disappointed when you get to the front you better go half with me on this.
Alun:
[30:46] Yeah i know i unfortunately because brunei is so not a tourist destination i didn't meet any other travelers to share the experience with yeah but the item you'd find it really interesting mate it's called amboyette okay and it's the inside of a sago palm tree scooped out and mixed with hot water to make this really gloopy starch yeah cool and then they use this two-pronged bamboo utensil called a chandice and they'll like loop it up on the stick and then dip it in different sauces and and and just eat the the starch it's a bit like tapioca starch kind of it was really amazing does.
Adam:
[31:22] Does it just taste of whatever it's dipped in?
Alun:
[31:24] Absolutely, yeah. It's just like a kind of gloopy, starchy, palmy mass.
Adam:
[31:31] Can it be savoury and sweet as well?
Alun:
[31:33] You could dip it in some sugar if you're a psychopath, yeah.
Adam:
[31:37] That's really cool, mate. I have got a question which... Which maybe you're even waiting for. But do you think that your experience in Brunei was so surprisingly positive because of what people had said before? It's very difficult for you to just go in there objectively. Because when you're loaded with so much negative information and people saying, you know, I really wouldn't bother. I mean, if you've got literally nothing else to do in this area, you might as well. So that element of surprise.
Alun:
[32:06] I did go in with the bias that I wanted it to be better than people said.
Adam:
[32:11] Yeah. Definitely.
Alun:
[32:12] But I did genuinely find that, oh, no, it definitely isn't uninteresting. For a bunch of cultural, historical reasons, it is interesting. The idea there was a country that was protectorate of the British, not colonized by the British, because they understood the oil potential. The fact that it's always been this monarchy, but the discovery of oil there has meant that that sultan is now worth 50 billion dollars and upwards and it's just like i i think the country is culturally very very interesting yeah.
Surprising Discoveries in Brunei
Adam:
[32:49] Yeah that's really cool.
Alun:
[32:50] So i'm going to start a new movement mate and far from saying it's just for counting countries i'm going to say if you haven't been to brunei have you really traveled.
Adam:
[33:00] Yeah i like it mate i like it but you gotta have something about you to tell someone not to go somewhere.
Alun:
[33:04] And with that that was a rough review of my time in brunei my journey there via labuan but we have got to hear from another traveler listeners of the show can go to our website there's a link in the description and submit their own best travel story we'll hear it for three minutes here's what a listener had to say right now.
Tales of a Trip:
[33:24] Hey guys, how's it going? So my story happened back in 2014. It was featured in one of my older videos, but I'm going to be adding a bit more to it in this story now. So basically me and my buddy Chris did a three-week trip. We went to China and then went into Tibet.
Tales of a Trip:
[33:41] And then we were going to see the Tibetan Everest base camp and then head into Nepal and finish in Kathmandu.
Tales of a Trip:
[33:46] That was the plan. But after a few days in Tibet, my mate Chris got severe altitude sickness.
Tales of a Trip:
[33:51] He ended up in hospital he was in a really bad way like his blood oxygen level which is supposed to be in the 90s was like at 50 uh so he had to have a couple of nights in hospital sort of being pumped full of oxygen and steroids and all this stuff uh but the ultimately the only way to cure altitude sickness is to get to lower altitude so we had to leave the tour so we got an ambulance back to larsa the capital of tibet and whilst we're driving in the ambulance so chris was like oh carl i'm so sorry i've messed up the whole trip i'm like mate don't apologize this is making fantastic videos so it's all good um but i remember like the ambulance driver despite chris having a problem breathing well he was just smoking away like having cigarettes whilst driving an ambulance and also on his phone as well uh but we got to larsa we got on the plane and uh you know leaving tibet was quite nerve wracking in the airport because the only way you can go to tibet is on a tour um so trying to get out the country by leaving a tour there's all this military checks and asking why we're leaving and it kind of felt like that movie argo at the end when they're trying to get out the country it was very nerve-wracking but fortunately we got through got on the plane made it to nepal chris was okay and then because we missed out on everest 18 months later we went back to nepal and did the everest base camp trek and we both made it to base camp it was amazing it was beautiful we completed our quest for everest and it was all great.
Tales of a Trip:
[35:17] I thought that was the end of the story. But two years after that, my wife, Jamie, who I haven't met yet, I don't know exists yet, she books on to do the Everest Base Camp Trek. And in her research, finds my video. And off the back of that, three years later, she books on to my Iceland tour, which is where we first met. So if Chris had never gotten ill, we would have never have gone back and done the Everest Base Camp Trek, which means jamie would have never seen the video and we would never have met so uh when jamie and i got married uh we had chris perform the ceremony for us and then when we're doing the thank you speeches uh later on in the day i i sort of told an abbreviated version of that story and said look none of us would be here today if it wasn't for chris's weak ass lungs so there you go anyway all the best guys and uh speak soon.
Alun:
[36:11] Chris, you altitudinous matchmaking dreamboat there, putting together a wonderful matchmaking situation for Carl Watson. Carl Watson, there's a link in the description to Carl's videos because he's an exceptional traveller and videographer and a brilliant storyteller, as we've just heard. So thank you, Carl, for sending in your tale of a trip.
Adam:
[36:35] Yeah, what a story. I mean, I find it difficult to relate to that sort of thing. I mean, you have been to the areas that they're talking about, but it's amazing. I guess the takeaway is that when you kind of look at all the breadcrumbs going backwards and using hindsight and stuff, travel and life in general and all the network and the connections that you make, it is such a wonderful thing. So you just, even out of incredibly bad, tragic situations can further down the line come magical ones.
Alun:
[37:05] Yeah, there's a place called Namche Bazaar, which is the sort of the first hub you get to if you're starting the Everest region trek. And there's three types of people. traveling through Namche Bazaar. You've got people going up, you've got people coming back down, and you've got people who for whatever reason had to return due to altitude sickness. And they're usually sat sort of a bit dejected in the corner of the guest house with a cup of tea. It's a really common thing in the Everest region to have to go back because of altitude sickness. So perhaps chris's lungs weren't so weak after all perhaps carl's lungs were just fairly exceptional.
Adam:
[37:49] Yeah i mean you know that i'm worried about altitude sickness you know that i've got nepal and of course tibet to explore so um that's kind of filled me with a bit of confidence that if, in doubt just hang around maybe go down don't worry about it too much and then you can always attempt it later on you may even get a marriage out of it.
Alun:
[38:08] It's cool to see a silver lining isn't it that jamie saw those videos and she was like what an interesting oh the guy telling this story he's quite good looking in he perhaps i'll get in touch and see if i can't marry him yeah.
Adam:
[38:22] Really really cool thanks ever so much for the for the voice note car we love talking to you we're a huge fan of um your videos of course carl has an amazing way of capturing backpacking and group travel that i don't think any other youtuber
A Traveler's Tale
Adam:
[38:35] um does so go and check out his stuff.
Alun:
[38:37] He's certainly one of my favorites mate but if you the listening audience if one of you has a story that you think, rivals carl's or you've had your own altitudinous mishaps why not send it in there's a link to tales of a trip down in the description as well you could be on the next episode of topology telling us about how you vomited all the way down a mountain or something similar now though we've got to go
to the lost and found section just for the patreonis where adam's got some special little stories to tell we'll see you all there we'll.
Adam:
[39:07] See you there bye
