Brunei and Beyond

Malaysian Borneo was high on our list of ‘must sees’ for the trip but our round-the-world ticket alliance offered no routes to the island. The low cost airline Air Asia offered the best solution with a flight to the mid coast city of Miri from Kuala Lumpur. An afternoon bus ride from Singapore had us in Kuala Lumpur 2 days prior to our flight. We had hoped to catch up with some of my old work buddies staffed in Kuala Lumpur but of course this was the week they were off on their own vacation. So we had 2 full days to explore the city and passed most of the time on long walks and runs around town taking in the urban scenery.

The dominant focal point of the cityscape is the Petronas Towers, the skyscrapers which took over the title of ’tallest buildings in the world’ from the Sears Tower in 1996 only to lose it in 2004. The buildings are magnificent. It is one thing to design and build such a large structure but to do it twice simultaneously is quite the accomplishment. To cap it off, the towers are attractive, wrapped in ribbons of stainless steel, and are now considered the crown jewel of the city.

The two hour flight out from the mainland had us in Miri by noontime and from there we needed to head north to reach the activities we had planned. The small nation of Brunei laid in our path. The island of Borneo is geographically spit in two with Malaysia occupying the western part and Indonesia covering the eastern half. Then there is the country of Brunei, appearing as some sort of small geographic afterthought sandwiched by Malaysian Borneo on three sides and the ocean on the fourth. The tiny Islamic nation consists of less than 400,000 people and is headed by one of the most wealthy persons in the world, the Sultan of Brunei.

We caught a shared taxi north from Miri to the Brunei capital city of Bandar Seri Begawan (BSB), along the way stopping at the Malaysia/Brunei border for what turned out to be one of our oddest border crossings yet. For starters we did not exit the car or speak to anyone. Our driver simply pulled up to a drive thru style window to both exit Malaysia and enter Borneo and handed over our passports for stamping. In between the two checkpoints we did have to stop at a small shed for a mandatory H1N1 full body temperature scan. Evidently it was a slow day at the checkpoint as the medical staff had to take a break from watching ‘The Naked Gun 33 1/3’ on the flat screen mounted to the wall in order to take our temperature.

BSB is a sleepy capital, with well paved roads and manicured lawns. Entering Brunei had stirred up thoughts similar to what one thinks of when mentioning the excesses of Dubai but we found this oil rich country to be quite the contrary. The city center consisted of low rising buildings and is dominated by the beautiful Omar Ali Saifuddien Mosque but offers nothing extraordinary from a visitors perspective other than a pleasant stroll beside the water. The sale of alcohol is banned in Brunei and most of the restaurants looked quiet (it was the Islamic month long period of Ramadan and much of the country was fasting during daylight hours). We caught a tour of the Royal Regalia museum which housed many gifts given to the Sultan of Brunei over the years from world dignitaries. What do you give a man with such wealth? The answer is anything made of gold including statues, daggers, models of buildings, vases, etc.

We must mention that our path out of Brunei involved two ferries with a night layover on the island of Labuan. If you like duty free shopping, head to Labuan. We left a country where alcohol was banned and entered an island where cans of beer cost 50 cents (about ¼ of the normal cost in Malaysia). The island of Labuan is some 100 km offshore but due to difficult terrain on Borneo, it acts as the main corridor of travel over the northern border between Brunei and Malaysia.

The main island of Borneo actually played a critical role in the later part of World War II, mostly due to it‘s strategic location. Initially reinforced by Australian regiments, it was then sacked by the Japanese prior to the Allies retaking control again in mid 1945. We were somewhat surprised to spot a World War II Memorial on the map of the small island Labuan, a handful of kilometers outside of the main town, and figured it made a good destination for an evening run. We reached the oceanside memorial and were immediately filled with a emotion. The memorial was actually the final resting place for over 3900 Allied soldiers, mostly from Australian infantry and engineering units. Simple but tasteful plaques informed us that a majority of the dead were a result of the Japanese ‘death marches’. The death marches were a last ditch effort by the Japanese in early 1945 to kill off the remaining POWs before losing control of the Borneo. The marches sent already weak soldiers on a march 250 km into dense jungle. Out of the 2500+ POWs that started the march, only 260 survived, all of which died of disease and starvation once reaching the destination camp.

We wandered the rows of white gravestones for nearly an hour as the sun set. Families of soldiers were able to engrave a last goodbye on the headstones and it was touching to have the opportunity to read these farewells. I was somewhat taken back by the fact that nearly half of the gravesites were of unknown soldiers, simply marked with ’Known only by God’. We treasured our quiet time at the memorial and were reminded that the freedom that we have to do such an amazing trip through so many countries is nothing to be taken for granted.