Muara, Brunei

Not know much about Brunei, (to be quite honest, never even heard of the place before docking there) I decided to take a tour of the city to see the highlights of Muara. Brunei is known as one of the richest countries due to its discovery of vast deposits of oil off shore in the early 20th century. On one hand the city features many beautiful Mosques and Temples but on the other, it was quite weird to see such riches right next to poverty.

Our first stop along the way was to the museum which featured the royal family’s private collection of gifts from other countries which had all kinds of things ranging from pottery, jewelery, paintings and other unique antique items.

After that we headed to the Jame Asr Hassanel Bolkiah Mosque which was beautiful. The details of the Mosque was all finished in 24 carat gold and Swarovski crystals hung from all the chandeliers. This Mosque holds over 5000 people and is the most magnificent in Brunei.

Following our visit to the Mosque, we boarded a water taxi to view the rainforest and water city which is one of the last remaining active water cities still around. I’m still not certain if the water taxi was completely safe but at least they gave us makeshift lifejackets just in case anything happened.

Our guide took us into a small opening in the trees alongside of the river to look for something I had been wanting and waiting to see all day… real live monkeys in their natural habitat. We waited for a short time and three Proboscis Monkeys appeared and played above us in the canopy trees. This was definitely my highlight of the tour even though I didn’t manage to snap of picture of them as I was too intrigued watching them swing around above me.