The activities for the Sail Malaysia fleet in Brunei were organised by Alan Riches who lives here and we met in Darwin last year as he runs Brunei Bay Radio (for sailmail) and a tour company etc. At mid day Customs, Harbour Master and Immigration came to the yacht club so that we could all check in and we had the usual mound of paper work to fill in. Later in the afternoon we were taken by van to get diesel which Alan had arranged for us to get at the local price of .31c (NZ.34c) a litre with a maximum of 300 litres. We took the opportunity to get 300 litres and borrowed 10 containers to add to our five that we have plus also got 20 litres of petrol ( another story later on).

That night we had a great barbecue meal at the Yacht Club and we caught up with some friends from the previous two rallies and they came back to our boat for coffee afterwards.

Sunday morning we were to move ten miles further upstream to the second Yacht Club (same club) but as we had no motor we had to be towed and so Baker Street did the honours. Most of the other yachts had local young people onboard and had an enjoyable experience with them. We were half way along on the trip upstream, and we had lost concentration for a few minutes when we heard Baker Street yelling at us and they had hit the bottom and run aground and as there was a 5 knot current running with us we were on a collision course with them. It was all action stations and we managed to miss them by a foot by fending off and Dave veering off. We pulled out the genoa and were able to sail a little further up the river for a short time until Baker Street managed to get themselves off the bottom. Fortunately the tide was coming in. The second yacht club is much closer to the main part of the city.

After anchoring off the yacht club, lunch was Sunday Roast and what a fabulous meal it was too with beautiful roast lamb, beef and chicken along with Yorkshire pudding and all the trimmings.

After our lovely dinner Alan took a group of 25 of us on a four hour tour of the city. He was a fantastic tour guide and it was probably the best tour we have had since we were in Cairns. We visited the State Mosque, a museum which houses the Sultan's Regalia, the Water Village, drove passed the Sultan's Palace where we stopped to have a look through the gates. When one of the family are leaving the Sultan's Palace all the traffic is stopped until they have gone so we were there when one of the princes rode out on a motor bike. The two traffic controllers also stopped all the traffic for us to cross the road both ways to view what we could see of the palace.

Now for some information about Brunei. The present Sultan is 63 and is the head of the religion for the country and holds the three key cabinet positions - Prime Minister, Defence Minister and Finance Minister. Brunei is a strict Muslim country with 67% of the country being Muslim and there is no alcohol for sale although one can take one's own alcohol to the yacht club. There are no taxes in Brunei and they only pay $1 for the Doctor, $1 for prescriptions and $1 for operations.

Brunei is one of the smallest countries in the world but back in the time of the spice age they were the biggest empires in SE Asia but was taken by the Spanish and then the British. When the British took over Brunei the then Sultan put James Brook in charge of Sarawak which was a big mistake as they took it over and is now a Malaysian state and the Malaysian Government pay his family 1500RM a year rent and it has never been changed, although apparently the descendants are trying to get an increase now!

Originally the Shell Oil Company took most of the proceeds from the oil in Brunei until the Sultan demanded that Brunei received 51% of the proceeds from the oil and it was in Shell's interests to agree so the country has become very rich. There are no taxes, lots of scholarships given out for people to gain overseas education and in general the population are well cared for and helped out if in need.

The ground is very soft in Borneo and in Brunei before a road or building is built huge piles are driven down 20 or more metres down into the ground.

As we drove around we noticed that there were some very up market homes in amongst very poor looking homes and Allan explained that families etc. live in a kampong and one always stays in the same kampong as one has been bought up in so no matter if you attain great wealth or not you still live or build in that kampong.

Sixty percent of the 400,000 population are employed by the Government and after 10 years the Government gives them enough money to take the family on an overseas holiday. They pay a levy to the mosque, depending on income and family and if a person gets into financial difficulty the hierarchy will bail them out. The money is also used for scholarships etc.

30,000 people live in the Water Village and these are long rows of houses built on stilts over the water. They have their own mosque, schools, medical centres, town water, electricity etc. We had afternoon tea in one of the homes in the water village and at the front of the house was a huge lounge area for receiving guests etc. with very ornate plaster ceilings and good furniture. Quite amazing when you see what the house was like on the outside. However the rest of the house was not as plush! They have a hole in the floor where all the scraps etc. go down into the river, including the sewerage. They say the river is not polluted as the catfish eat all the sewerage and scraps but nobody catches the catfish to eat. Water taxis run backwards and forwards across the river transporting people to and fro with most having cars on the mainland. There are even multimillionaires livings in the Water Village.

As you can imagine, with no motor our batteries were getting pretty low so Dave hauled out our $99 Bunning's generator to charge the batteries, still went with the petrol that has been in there for about three years. By Sunday night it had just about run out so Dave filled it up and then after a short while it died. We ended up fiddling around with the carburetor for a couple of hours and still could not get it to stay going without full choke. Craig, on Solan had offered us his little generator so we took up the offer and went and borrowed it. It was ¾ full of petrol so we topped it up but after an hour or so it died as well! We then decided it must be the fuel so we opened the container and took a whiff and our petrol container had been filled with diesel! We had watched it being filled and it came out of a pump next to the diesel one and had a green handle but obviously was another grade of diesel. We had asked for petrol but the attendant obviously misunderstood.

Monday morning at 7.30am we were on a tour to Ulu Temburong National Park so Alan took our jerry can to be filled with petrol and took our fuel injection pump to a fuel injection place to get fixed.

From the yacht club we went by bus to the city centre of Bander Seri Begawan (BSB for short and the capital of Brunei) and then transferred to a long, narrow covered in ferry with 2x 200hp motors on the back, for a very fast 50 minute journey up the river to a small town where we had morning tea and then got on another bus for a short journey before transferring into 5 seater long boats with 30hp Yamaha motors on the back and went for an exhilarating ride over shallow water and rapids to the Ulu Temburong National Park Rain forest. Our driver was very skilful and most of the time the prop of the motor was only just touching the water. When the water was deeper he would go flat out and the back of the longboat would fill up with water and when we went over the rapids the water would all move forwards and we would glide over the shallow rapids. One of the longboats broke their propeller on the journey up but I would say it is a regular occurrence.

Once we reached the rainforest we had a steep walk plus 385 steps to get to the towers that we then climbed up to do a canopy walk over the top of the rainforest which was another 315 steps up, although that part was easy but a little scary as the tower was 45 metres high! We were only allowed five people at a time climbing the tower with only one on each section and then only two people at a time to walk across but it was an amazing view.

Had a short long boat ride to a little beach on the side of the river where we were given lunch which was very nice and consisted of rice, sweet & sour fish, curried chicken, bamboo shoots and a dish made from jackfruit nuts and topped off with fresh watermelon. And this was a picnic lunch done by a local lady but where she came from would not have a clue as there did not seem to be any houses around and we were right in the middle of the jungle.

From there several went on a raft down the river but quite a few of us rafted down the river and rapids on a lilo which Dave & I shared which was quite fun and arrived sopping wet to meet the bus from where we had originally caught the longboats. After the short trip on the bus we returned back to BSB by the fast longboat ferry which was another exhilarating 45 minute ride arriving just after 4.30pm.

From there Alan took us to see the man about our fuel pump injector and as suspected a part in the stop leaver was broken and unfortunately had to be ordered from Singapore which would take three days. Come yesterday the part was in customs but had not been released and today being Friday is a holiday but customs do work tomorrow so hopefully the guy will get it in the morning and we can be away by the afternoon, but we still have to clear customs and immigration which will take a little while but will do an overnight sail up to Kota Kinabalu where to we are to meet Leith and his friend Bjorn on Sunday and it is the final dinner for the Rally on Sunday night.

On Monday night's they have a movie and dinner here at the yacht club and most of us opted to have the meal ashore and see the movie although we arrived a little late as we were fuelling up the generator etc. to get it back into operation.

All the rally boats left here on Tuesday and Dave & I spent Wednesday in town, going to the markets and supermarket and looking around generally. By the time we got back I was pooped so ended up.

Yesterday was a boat maintenance day. I have been in the yacht club today making use of the free wireless internet while Dave biked into town to get some more petrol.