Brunei- An Undiscovered Tourist Gem

No, Brunei is NOT  in the Middle East! It is found on the island of Borneo,situated in South East Asia.
 Even my sister-in-law expected she would experience a lot of sand dunes and camels when visiting for the first time.

Many times I have spoken with people in NZ when back on holiday and they ask, " You work in Brunei?.... Isn't that near Dubai? I think the word 'Sultan' brings to mind oil ,wealth ( well, that part's correct) and Sheiks, Emirs and .... camels.Even the island of Borneo ( where Brunei is one of three countries sharing borders ) is virtually unknown in the USA, even though it is the third largest island in the world.

Borneo tends to conjures up imagery of head hunters, cannibals and the like. In fact, Borneo was quite a wild place in the past and you can still see the evidence of past cannibalistic activities, viewing bleached skulls sitting atop long Bakau poles in some remote villages in the deep,interior regions of equatorial Borneo,accessed only by boat.
Europeans, especially Germans and French, are becoming more and more interested in Borneo as an interesting, safe and cheap tourist destination. Just try booking into a hotel in Kota Kinabalu ( capital city of Sabah-  East Malaysia's most northern state) around Christmas.You will see for yourself how popular these
resorts are with the Europeans.

Visit a Wee Slice of Heaven

Omar Ali Saifuddin III Mosque, Bandar Seri Begawan

BRUNEI DARUSSALAM- Where on earth is that you wonder? Tucked away in a tiny pocket of South East Asia on the 3rd largest island in the world, Borneo, Brunei is a small but modern nation of 315,000 primarily Malay people. Often associated with once the richest man in the world, the Sultan of Brunei, this country is nothing like what one would imagine. Certainly the streets are not paved with gold ( except for the small Royal family) but with lush, tropical palms, verdant green vegetation, often glistening with droplets from the frequent,humid equatorial rain. Brunei lies 5 degrees north of the equator, and therefore enjoys the typical hot and wet climate expected of countries lying so close to the centre of the Earth.