Bandar Seri Begawan, Brunei Darussalam

Most people we met here in Borneo, when they found out we were planning a day in Brunei, asked us why? But we enjoyed our day here.

We were staying at Hotel Brunei, very centrally located. Our room overlooked the morning market across the canal. We checked it out before breakfast.

Breakfast was the standard buffet plus eggs a la carte.

We toured around the Omar Ali Saifuddien mosque in the centre, which was okay, in a nice setting on an artificial lagoon. Next was the Royal Regalia Museum, which was mostly a display of gifts to the Sultan for his coronation. It also had original texts of all the documents up to Borneo attaining independence. Heather found these pretty interesting.

For a change we had Korean food for lunch, in the food court at the mall (which is where most of the food stalls are). It was really good.

At 4:30pm we took a water taxi cruise in search of proboscis monkeys. Whereas in Kota Kinabalu it's a two hour drive, here it's a 10 minute boat ride to see the monkeys.

We were lucky both that the rain held off, and then that we saw a family of 6 or 7 proboscis monkeys, including the male, eating and sitting in a tree. Unfortunately the branches and leaves prevented a decent pic, so we just observed them for about 20 minutes.

For dinner we tried a sushi place. At first we were a bit skeptical but tripadvisor rated it #1 in Brunei so we gave it a try. It was excellent.

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The next morning we were up at 5:30am to catch the 7am bus to Miri. Breakfast started at 6:30 so we had a quick serving of French toast and some fruit, and then walked the 5 minutes to where the bus departed from.

The bus ride was five hours long, including a 45 minute traffic backlog at the border. A 10 minute taxi ride brought us to the airport.

Our flight to Mulu is delayed, so we're hanging out in The Coffee Bean in the departure level, enjoying a tea and free wifi.

We have four days in Mulu exploring the bat caves and spelunking. The Lonely Planet says wifi is spotty in Mulu so the next time you hear from us may be Dec 20 from Kuala Lumpur.