Our Proboscis Monkey tour on Friday was definitely worth the money.  This is a new tour agency in town, and they have two pontoon boats that they run up and down the Brunei River for tours of Kampung Ayer, Sunset Tours and Proboscis Monkey tours.  We kind of had a combination tour, as we were returning to Bandar as the sun was setting.  Mike left work an hour early and we jumped on the boat at 4 PM with two other couples, one a "oil guy" and his wife from Texas who are moving from Singapore to Kuala Lumpur, and the other couple from England in transit home from 2 weeks in New Zeeland.  Was nice to just sit on the boat and cruise up the river out of town. 

The Proboscis Monkey is a monkey that is native to Borneo.  He is a shy animal with a really big nose.  The males are extremely territorial (and the only ones with the big noses) and are about twice the size of the females, weighing up to 45 pounds.   They live in "harems" and apparently, the larger the nose, the more female monkeys in the harem.  Enough said. . .

I was amazed to see how well they can camouflage themselves.  They are fairly good size, tend to hang out in the tops of green trees and are very red in coloring, how hard could they be to see, right?  Well, if it hadn't been for our guide, I doubt we would have seen the male at all.  The females and children are very active, springing from tree to tree, playing around.  But the males tend to hold court in one tree, not moving much, keeping their eyes on the harem, and eating. 

As we were on the river in a boat and they were on the shore in the tops of trees it was rather difficult to get a good picture of them, but neat to see in their natural environment.    We also saw a sleeping monitor lizard in a tree and some smaller monkeys called Macats (? I googled this name and nothing came up, but I know that's what he was calling them).  There was a chance we would see some crocs, too, but alas, they didn't show their faces.  They are the only natural predator of the monkey.  So, it was cool, although I did get a few mosquito bites, and we really didn't venture that far out of town.  Sunset coming back was pretty, and we had dinner at the Italian restaurant on the river upon our return. 

Up early on Saturday to catch the morning ferry for Labuan.  Arrived at our hotel around 10 AM, had a quick brunch and hit the pool for a little while.  I basically stayed in the pool with my book for about an hour, but still managed to get quite a sunburn.  I spend all my time yelling at Mike to use sunscreen and I'm the one with a sunburn. . . go figure.

Had a decent dinner despite the really SMELLY fish Mike ordered and headed over to Uncle Phil's sports bar to see our friend Charles.  Home fairly early, we were tired, too much sunshine.  Made plans to see Charles for lunch on Sunday on our way to the ferry.  I am now addicted to Bok Choy with butter and garlic.  I forgot how much I like this little Chinese version of spinach . . .  YUMMY!

Grabbed our requisite duty free beer and a couple bottles of wine to get us through the week.  Charles and his children are going to KK (Kota Kinabalu) next weekend, so depending on Mike's work schedule, we may try and meet up with them there.  Maybe we can get that kick butt room at the Hyatt again. . . probably not.

Back in Brunei for all the Sunday night fun that has to offer (none).  Mike had cheesecake for dinner, but I opted for the Wasabi Prawn Salad from room service.

We left one month ago today.  Why does it seem like three?????

Whew!  This is harder than expected.  I know many of you might “frown” on our lifestyle of hanging in bars all the time, but it sure beats hanging in our hotel room, or worse, hanging in a 24 hour coffee bar!  Having dinner is the highlight of our evening, and it ain’t much of a highlight!  We wait as long as possible to eat, but being the restaurants close at 9 or 10 PM, it still leaves us with a lot of time to do nothing.  If you can believe it, Mike and I watched two movies Saturday night, and managed to play a couple games of cribbage, besides.  And we were still in bed by 10:30! 

Okay, enough venting for today about the lack of nightlife, bars, and alcohol.

Saturday we went “downtown” to the coffee shop for some breakfast.  Upon leaving our hotel we noticed about five gazillion busses all over the parking lots and streets.  Apparently, the national holiday here is February 23, and it’s in honor of the Sultan (who still hasn’t shown his face, although I think he’s buzzing our hotel in his helicopter, probably on his way to the border for some whiskey), so yesterday they bussed in kids from all over the province to practice their parading and dances.  Was quite busy until around 1 PM, when they all got back in the buses and got out of town. 

On Friday, I had attempted to get our phones registered, but was told to come back tomorrow, as they were out of new phone numbers for the day, so after a leisurely breakfast we went over to the phone company to get SIM cards.  No problem, except my phone decided not to work.  Over to the mall to get me a NEW PHONE!  Now Mike and I are total geeks with matching Motorola Razor’s.  I couldn’t even get a different color, all they had was black.  Mike also forgot to pack his bathing suit, so did a little shopping to get him some beach/pool wear.

After being exhausted by all this shopping we decided an hour or two baking (frying) our bodies by the pool was in order, so we headed back to the hotel, took a swim and attempted to lay in the sun.  But, we couldn’t, it was TOOOOOOO HOT!  We could actually hear our flesh sizzling out there.  Jumped into the pool about every 10 minutes, but still only made it about 70 minutes out there.  Good thing too, because even with the sunscreen, we still got a little red. 

There was a little Asian gal watching us swim (we were the only idiots out by the pool) and as soon as we left, she got into her FULL WETSUIT and got into the pool.  Obviously, she wasn’t allowed to swim with ANOTHER MAN in the pool, and even then she couldn’t wear a bathing suit.  On Sunday the pool was rented for a children’s birthday party (probably 6-8 year olds), and even some of them had wetsuits on.  Craziness.  I guess it beats swimming in your full robe and veil like we saw in Sharm El Sheik.  I can’t imagine how their sensibilities were shook by my two piece bathing suit!  Nice, too, that the pool is right outside the glass walled restaurant, so all the poor people trying to enjoy their meal have to be subjected to the same. . .

Decided to go out and get a snack, ended up at the Dairy Queen (an actual Dairy Queen, in the basement of the building the Embassy is in. . . SWEET) and had a blizzard, then down to the waterfront for a cup of tea while watching the boats zip around. 

Every intention of going to dinner, but neither of us could work up a hunger, so we stayed in the room for the rest of the night.  Watched Queen Latifah’s “Last Holiday” and “Jarhead” (both of which I had bought at the mall for about $4).  What an exciting evening.

Saturday we had every intention of taking a boat ride, but never got around to it.  Decided to wait til Sunday morning, but woke up to rain.  Hit a different coffee bar for breakfast, better food but no free refill on the coffee, so a toss up.  Walked over to the supermarket in the rain to get some more coffee and tonic water for the room.   After all that excitement, went back to room.  Cleared off about 1 PM and we decided to go for a walk over to Gadong, the neighboring “town” (just across the river, about fifteen minutes away), which is the Chinese area of Bandar Seri Begawan.  We thought this was where the bowling alley and “The Mall” were, although I can’t imagine that the mall is bigger there than here.  Hoping they had some better restaurants. . .   After walking around for about two hours, all we found was the handicraft center (definitely not the central market in Phnom Penh) and a cemetery, so back into town for a light lunch on the riverside.  I will have to get a cab and go discover “The Mall” by myself, I guess. Probably better that way. 

Found a better map in the phone book later in the afternoon and decided to cruise over to the area of town where the bowling alley actually is and a shopping center.  Walked for about a half hour and were extremely disappointed.  The bowling alley was there, and we knew we wouldn’t be able to drink (duh), but you can’t even SMOKE there. . . What is it with Brunei?  They have to take all the fun out of everything!  Will probably be back there to roll some games at some point.  Feels like we’ve been here a month already.  Had a quick fast food dinner, walked back, had a gin and tonic and watched “Dead Man” with Johnny Depp.  Very odd movie, even for a die hard Depp fan.

Really haven’t met anyone (lack of bar atmosphere to blame, again, I believe), foreign or Bruneian.  People say HI on the street and seem overly friendly, but not ready to engage further.  A lot of the people around here are Filipino’s and Chinese, as waiting tables and working in department stores may be “below” what the Brunei people feel they should have to do.  Like Mike said last night, it will probably be the last week we are here (as always) that we meet some really cool people (who have access to beer. . .heehee).  The Embassy here is SMALL, staffed with only 6 Americans, including the Ambassador and DCM

Bandar Seri Begawan (say that three times fast) is a small, small town.  There is a 24 hour coffee bar, though.  Just what you need, to get jacked up on caffeine all night.    We’re not quite in the alcoholic league that just sits around in the room and gets smashed, so it’s been quite DRY around our family.  Hopefully our marriage will survive. . . JOKE!

No sign of the Sultan yet.

On the plus side, the people are genuinely nice, everybody speaks perfect English, and we’ve found the food to be quite pleasing.  No bars, pool halls, dart boards, or casino’s to spend our money on, so we might as well eat good.  Saving our beer money for food, I guess.  Can’t imagine what a beer will taste like when we get outta here. . .

It does seem odd here in southeast Asia to be listening to the call to prayer and watch everyone walk around with head scarves and long dresses.  Not too hard to spot the foreigners gallivanting around in their shorts and tank tops.  Not that it would be, anyway.  Nice not to be surrounded by poverty for a while, too.  Everybody seems to be pretty much middle class (except the Sultan, who hasn't called to say HI yet), and there is no crime to speak of.

There’s a large park with a waterfall (definitely not Niagra Falls) about a 15 minute walk from the hotel.  Went up there yesterday, was the ONLY person in the park.  Was nice and shady, cool breeze, sat and read my book for a while.  Need to find a camp chair to sit on, though, as all they have are dirty, hard cement benches.  Will be a nice place to hang out, though.

Last night they got some rain up on the “hill” behind our house and then the light got all yellow like it does, and a beautiful rainbow came out (see pics below).

There’s a national rainforest park about 30 kilometers away that we will visit, and an amusement park (think Cedar Point, only much smaller) we can check out.  Also talking of taking a bus ride down the coast to some of the oil/beach towns.  There’s an area called Kampung Ayer right across the river here hailed as the “Venice of the East” where you can take tours via small motor boat skiffs; will probably do that this weekend.  Weather has been warm, but with cloud cover, so not as intense as Cambodia when we first arrived, but hot (I know I’m getting no sympathy from the Michiganders reading this). 

Went down to get our cell phones activated, guy told me no more numbers today, come back tomorrow.  Interesting. 

We are currently at the Sheraton Utama, checked out a few other places to stay, but looks like we will stay put for now.  Not suffering too bad from jet lag and our Sheraton Super Sleeper Bed rocks the world!