Here I am in Brunei. Until this time I have been a rich westerner, a fact I have become accustomed to. Now I am virtually the poorest in the small country.

Prices being similar, if not only slightly cheaper, to Canada, Brunei is a rather expensive destination to a backpacker livign on a shoestring. The CAD$ compared to the B$ is almost the same as the US$ is to the CAD$, so it's like I'm an american visiting the north. The B$ is fixed with the Singapore dollar, and sometimes you receive change in S'pore money.

Yesterday I spent the day driving around with Vijen. Being Friday, it was a day of prayer and so many stores were closed, and the mosques were closed to visitors. Here in Brunei, and I presume in other Muslim countries too, Friday and Sunday are days off, while people work M-Thursday and then on Saturday. We had lunch in a very delicious Indian restaurant and then ran some errands at the local shopping centre, picking up groceries for dinner. Normally Vijen's maid would look after these things, but she has been on holiday for several weeks; a priviledge after two years of service. As Lori is in New Zealand visiting Sean, Vijen finds himself a bachelor lately.

We had a relaxing day and a very tasty pasta meal for dinner. Satellite television after, then a very nice sleep in a big bed.

Bruneians are very well off. The government subsidises virtually everything, especially housing. There are no taxes, no surcharges. National museums, galleries, and other centres are free. Gold glints off almost every building owned by the government and the sultan, and all the rest are donned with marvelous mosaics of italian marble, mirrored windows, chromed signs, magnificent marble pillars. The infrastructure is incredible for such a small city. The population of the country sits somewhere around 350,000, and while the capitol city, Bandar Seri Begawan, hosts the majority of this population, it is still a small city. Still, massive highways and wide roads criss-cross the countryside, lined by palm trees and flashy Hari Raya lights. The domes of the palace and many of the city mosques are made of gold.

Vijen used to have a position as the personal art instructor to the sultans daughter, and as required, he visited the palace everyday. Here in Brunei the expatriots buy the crappy cars as they won't stay in Brunei long. So for some time, Vijen would park his rusty clinker in the same parking lots as the sultans 200-some-odd ferraris. Apparently the sultan has thousands of very expensive cars, most handouts from the car makers themselves. Every year the newest models of sports cars are given to him by the car makers represented in the country. Most remain undriven.
Vijen would walk through the palace and instruct in the back rooms. Lush silk carpet glittered with gold on the floor. Sink taps in the bathroom crafted from solid gold. Unimaginable wealth.

He grew tired of babysitting the sultans daughter in such glamourous surroundings, and so now teaches at the British school for girls, enjoying it much more.