Brunei (still in Borneo)
The majestic Willow with a backdrop of mangroves outside of Gaya Island, Sabah, our last stop before sailing to Brunei.
The first event Aaron opted out of was a jungle trek that took Sarah, Bruce, Lindsey and our new friend Andi along the ridge you see behind the boat. If you look closely, you can see Aaron brushing his teeth leaning off the starboard side, clean, well rested and happy. What you can't see is Sarah taking the picture nearly drowning in a dinghy filling fast with the blood and sweat of the would-be-adventurers returning from their 3 hour pilgrimage to nowhere!
Sailing to Brunei. Colors soon to be featured in a line of lingerie to be designed by First-mate Lindsey Stewart.
How very primary!
Sunset guest artist: Maxfield Parish.
Nice!
The return of Maxfield Parish!
getting ready for another night watch
Everyday for 7 weeks. Sometimes puffy clouds catching every pastel in the spectrum before turning hauntingly into smoldering embers, sometimes distant storm clouds in black against a bold red field like arabic script written across the horizon on a sheet of silk.
Welcome to Brunei! Have you seen National Lampoon's Family Vacation? Remember how they bust into a closed theme park and hold staff hostage to run everything? Our trip isn't so dramatic, but we did get a theme park to ourselves. Built for the sultan's 48th birthday party, it is now almost totally useless to anyone, maintaned for his occasional diversion.
Tele-Combat! You control your own Pteradactyl pressing a button to shoot at the one in front of you. We were alone. We shot into the wild with reckless abandon!
...which is romantic, so we took a picture. Cute!
The go-carts suffered a more somber fate.
No one sees this rotunda but the staff that maintains this park for no one.
This is the largest stilt village in the world. This bridge some untold number of kids' commute from their floating house to their floating school. Sarah says, "They're not floating!" She's right. You can't see that in the picture, but they are not floating.
...but he's floating. Enraptured and floating! We were flying actually. He's our tour guide. We asked him if he spoke English . He said "yes." That's his best word. He also had "I don't know" down pretty well, but not nearly as good as his "yes."
Sarah ponders Islam among the stilts.
A lot of these houses were painted vibrant colors, one of the few Asian contributions to architecture and urban planning that I'd like to see incorporated in the states.
An intersection in the stilt village. I couldn't get any actual information out of our guide, but it seemed like most of Bandar Seri Begawan's population lived in the stilt village. Strange, for such a supposedly prosperous country. Then again, these houses seemed more hooked up than your average urban slums.