The whole country in eight days, which is the right length for it. A stilt city of forty-two villages on the Brunei River, a thirty-kilometre bridge to an exclave that used to take two hours and four border checkpoints to reach, the rainforest behind it, and the oil town on the far coast that paid for all of it.
Bandar Seri Begawan
A capital of about a hundred thousand people that takes an afternoon to walk. The Sultan Omar Ali Saifuddien Mosque was completed in 1958 and sits in its own lagoon with a concrete replica of a sixteenth-century royal barge moored beside it, built in 1967. Non-Muslim visitors can go inside between prayer times, but not at all on Thursdays and on Fridays only for an hour in the late afternoon. Finish at Tamu Kianggeh, the produce market on the creek.
Kampong Ayer
Forty-two contiguous stilt villages on the Brunei River, with schools, mosques, a fire station and mains water. Antonio Pigafetta came through with Magellan's survivors in 1521 and wrote it up as a city on the water; it has been continuously inhabited far longer than that. Water taxis leave the waterfront constantly and cost a dollar or two — flag one, name a jetty. Go out again at dusk for proboscis monkeys in the mangroves, which live nowhere but Borneo.
Gadong, Jerudong and the coast
Pick up the hire car. The Jame' Asr Hassanil Bolkiah Mosque was finished in 1994 for the sultan's twenty-fifth year on the throne and carries twenty-nine domes, one for each sultan to date. The Royal Regalia Building holds the chariot from the 1992 silver jubilee and is free. Then west past Jerudong Park Playground, opened 1994, and the Empire, built as a royal guesthouse and turned into a hotel after its financing collapsed in 1998.
Over the bridge to Temburong
Temburong is an exclave — Sarawak took the Limbang strip in 1890 and cut it off. Until 2020 you either drove two hours through Malaysia and four immigration checkpoints or took a 45-minute speedboat. The Sultan Haji Omar Ali Saifuddien Bridge, 30 km long and built for about B$1.6 billion by Korean and Chinese contractors, opened on 17 March 2020 and made it half an hour. Bangar is the district town; carry on to Batang Duri at the end of the road.
Ulu Temburong
The park can only be entered with a licensed operator, and access is by temuai — a shallow longboat poled and motored up the Temburong river from Batang Duri, thirty minutes to an hour depending on the water. The canopy walkway is a set of aluminium towers about 50 m high, reached by several hundred wooden steps in heat that makes them count. Below it the Belalong is clear enough to swim in, and the university keeps a field studies centre on the bank.
West to Tutong
Back over the bridge and out along the coastal highway. Tasek Merimbun is Brunei's largest natural lake — S-shaped, and black rather than blue because the peat forest around it leaches tannins into the water. It was named an ASEAN Heritage Park in 1984; a boardwalk crosses to the island in the middle. Afterwards Pantai Seri Kenangan, on the spit where the Tutong river runs parallel to the sea for several kilometres before it gives up.
Seria and the Belait coast
Oil came in at Seria on 5 April 1929 and the state has run on it ever since. The Billionth Barrel Monument marks the milestone reached on 18 July 1991; the structure standing now was unveiled in 2004 for the industry's seventy-fifth anniversary, near the site of the first well. Nodding donkeys work the beach road either side of it, which is the least ceremonious way any country displays its entire economy. Kuala Belait, a few kilometres on, is where the expatriate engineers live.
Jalan Labi, and back
South off the coast road into the Belait interior. Luagan Lalak is a freshwater swamp that fills into a lake and empties again with the season, crossed on a boardwalk. Further up the track are Iban longhouses — Mendaram Besar and, at the end, Teraja, which takes overnight guests on the communal ruai for a few dollars. The trail behind Teraja reaches a waterfall in about an hour. Then the run back to the capital.
Good to know
Entry is straightforward for most Western passports — 90 days visa-free for US and Schengen nationals, shorter for some others, a visa on arrival for a few, and a single-entry visa at B$20 otherwise; everyone must file the electronic arrival card before landing. Alcohol has not been sold in Brunei since 1991. A non-Muslim over 17 may import two litres of spirits or wine plus twelve cans of beer, declared on a customs form at the point of entry, no more often than every 48 hours, and it is for drinking in private. During Ramadan, section 195 of the Syariah Penal Code makes eating, drinking or smoking in a public place during fasting hours an offence that reaches non-Muslims too, so restaurants switch to takeaway and you eat in your room — plan the trip outside it if that matters to you. On Fridays almost everything shuts between noon and two. Drug trafficking carries a mandatory death sentence and the airport takes it seriously. Sex between men is criminal here for everyone, not only for Muslims: section 377 of the ordinary Penal Code carries up to ten years, and sections 82 and 84 of the Syariah Penal Code reach non-Muslims too. The moratorium the Sultan announced in 2019 covers carrying death sentences out, not arrest or prosecution, and same-sex couples should weigh that before booking. The Temburong bridge is free and open around the clock, but scheduled buses to Bangar are thin and stop early, so a hire car or a booked transfer is the realistic way across; Ulu Temburong cannot be entered independently at all, only through a licensed operator, and low water on the river cancels boats. The Brunei dollar has been pegged one-to-one with the Singapore dollar since 1967 and Singapore notes are accepted everywhere, which is useful if you arrive with leftovers.
Shorter or longer?
Cross at Sungai Tujoh beyond Kuala Belait and carry on to Miri, about ninety minutes, then the Niah caves and Mulu. Three or four extra days and a working comparison between two halves of the same island.
The capital and Temburong only — mosque, water village, bridge, canopy walkway. Cuts the western drive, the lake and the oil coast — so you see everything the money built and never the place it comes out of the ground.