Saturday in Brunei

Changing the guard
at the Sultan's palace

Toured the city today visiting the national museum and the museum of royal regalia. The royal regalia is a collection of clothing and jewelry used by the Sultan and his wives. The Sultan is the ruler of Brunei. He has two wives. They live with their children in a palace with 1788 rooms!
The chariots used to carry the Sultan to his coronation and to celebrate his 25th year as Sutlan were also in the museum. The Sultan's family have ruled Brunei for more than 700 years. The present Sultan is the 29th Sultan of Brunei.

The Sultan's entrance
to the mosque

Most of the people of Brunei are Muslim. They worship in a mosque. We visited the largest mosque in Brunei, with room for over 5000 people to pray. The mosque was built by the Sultan as gift to his people. The Sultan has a lot of money, and was at one time, the richest man in the world. The money comes from the sale of oil and gas that is pumped up from under the sea.
The Sultan also uses the money to pay for the education, medical needs and housing of the Brunei people.

After lunch, we visited the water village. Thousands of people live in this village, in houses built on stilts over the water of the Brunei River. The first people to settle in this area hundreds of years ago built houses in this style. To cross to the mainland to their jobs, and to shop, the village people take fast motorboats called water taxis. The children go to schools which are also built on stilts over the water. There are also village medical clinics and mosques.

On the way home we stopped at a farmer's market where fresh fruit and vegetables are sold. Local produce included jackfruit, pawpaw, watermelon, sweet potato, leafy green vegetables, and dried prawns, anchovies and mussels. Long tailed macque monkeys played in the trees nearby, hoping to be able to steal some of the fruit and vegetables from the market stalls.