Category Archives: Life

From Mansion to Burger Stand

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Born in 1966, Hady was born into a quite known family. Back in the 1950s-60s, Hady’s grandfather was a well-known figure, a formidable kuntau (martial art) champion.

In 1981, aged 15, Hady joined the Boys Wing, following the footsteps of his older brother who had joined the Boys Wing a couple of years earlier. The Boys Wing was a scheme where Form 3 students who were interested to serve in the military could continue their academic education (Form 4 to O Level) at the armed forces training institute. Hady’s brother went on to serve as a military officer while Hady served as a military technical personnel (non-officer), although they just served for just a few short years, before deciding that the military was not for them.

After quitting the military, Hady’s brother tried his hands at business. Hady followed suit, dabbling into various business ventures. Some were promising and successful at first, but none was sustainable. Perhaps because of their young age and inexperience.

Somewhere down the line, Hady’s brother hit a jackpot. He married into a prominent family. The daughter of a big kahuna, filthy rich and very influential local figure. Soon enough he ditched his Nissan for a Porsche, moved into a mansion, embracing the elite life.

Meanwhile, for Hady, as much as he wanted to continue following his brother’s footsteps, he didn’t have a filthy rich girlfriend to marry. He did get married too though, but to a regular middle-class girl. If it was any consolation, his wife got a stable job as a government officer thus able to bring some income to cover the couple’s financial needs while giving way for Hady to get his business ventures off the ground and sustain.

As a government servant, Hady’s wife was also eligible for various benefits that the couple could enjoy – subsidised housing, interest free loans, the sorts. Thus, taking out a bank loan she did. The money from the loan was to fund her husband’s new business idea. Despite her vote of confidence, weeks and months after she handed over the loan money to her husband, nothing happened. When asked where did all the money go, Hady was nonchalant about it, telling her that the business just tanked. Not only that the wife remained as the breadwinner, she had to part with a large chunk of her salary for monthly payments of the bank loan. In the end, the marriage didn’t survive and ended in divorce. Hady went back living with his parents while his ex-wife got a full custody of the bank loan debt.

It wasn’t long until Hady got another business idea. Despite his past failures, he felt good about this one. It was something different from what he ventured into in the past – real estate business. Real estate is no monkey business which requires a large sum of capital and Hady knew exactly who could help him with that – his uncle.

Hady’s uncle is a local millionaire (allegedly), a well-known successful businessman in the engineering and construction fields. After pitching his idea, the uncle agreed to be a guarantor for Hady’s 2 million dollars bank loan. It is not known whether his agreement was out of kindness to a blood relative or he was really impressed and convinced with Hady’s business idea. Had he (or his men) done some background check or spoken to Hady’s ex-wife, surely the uncle wouldn’t have taken the bait.

The bank loan was approved and as soon as Hady got his hands on the money, all bets were off. Hady splurged the money on luxury vacations, expensive cars, buying a boat and building a hilltop mansion at Kg Jangsak.

Hady used part of the S2 million dollars to pay for the monthly loan payment for a while until the money ran out. When the monthly payment stopped, the bank took legal action. Hady was declared bankrupt and he had to surrender all his assets. [Side thought: After bankruptcy, Hady would have to pay some amount monthly to the Court’s Bankruptcy Office – meaning he handed the payment to a thief, Ramzidah, who was the official receiver at that time].

The hilltop mansion in Kg Jangsak was only about 60% completed when the property was seized. Sitting right on the edge of a hill overlooking pretty much the whole of Kg Jangsak, the mansion, despite not yet completed, had already taken its full shape and already captivating, grabbing the attention of passersby. It is not known if the mansion was even put up for auction or if it did, it had no takers. There was never any work done to complete it and it just sat there as it was to this day. It’s access road and compound have been engulfed by wild vegetations, but the front face of the mansion remains clearly visible, like it refuses to be forgotten, longing to be owned, longing to have human occupants.

Bankrupt, Hady went on to marry a widow with 6 kids. The bankruptcy didn’t hinder his love for business though. With his wife, he sold nasi katok. However, that business too, together with his marriage didn’t last long. Both ended when Hady was arrested and thrown in jail (for a non-money related crime).

After his stint in the slammer, Hady met and married a Thai lady. Of course, his passion for business remained intact. With his Thai wife, he started a food truck. This was at the height of the food truck fad in Brunei. In-trend and low startup cost, Hady thought this would be the one that would last. However, the hype was short-lived, and like the rest, the endeavour faltered.

Now in his 50s, Hady runs a burger stand in front of his parents’ house. It turned out that this could be the one as the burger stand lasts longer than his very many other past business ideas. Hady had found his true calling.

Sorry That It Didn’t Work Out…

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Let’s take a moment of silence to remember Kristal Astro which has just left us on 01 April 2022. For years I thought they were gonna lower their monthly fees but alas they held their ground to the grave.

It was when I stayed in Singapore for a year that I realised how outrageous were our Astro fees and service here in Brunei. That was back in 2003. While in Singapore, I paid about $60+ monthly for uninterrupted TV cable service plus internet, be there rain or storm.

If there is one fond memory I have of Astro, it is the movie channels, watching movies after movies on HBO and Cinemax and during Ramadhan, having movie marathon to kill time before Sungkai.

A friend would recommend and helped me set a wireless transmitter and receiver thingy which allowed me to watch from my TV right in front of my bed.

I remember getting excited every week to watch the Walking Dead episodes on Fox HD which aired just a few hours after they aired in the US, feeling anxious everytime bad weather came in the hours running up to the airing time. There were a number of times when I missed part or all of the episode telecast due to stormy weather. Even a few drops of rain would kill the signal, clenching my teeth, withholding my anger to only catching the closing credits when the signal came back. In the end, I had to google for the episode recaps just to get the updates, who died, who survived. Yes, I do love watching zombie shows that much.

I was so bummed when one day Fox HD turned up blank. I didn’t get the memo that I needed to switch to Astro Byond in order to continue getting the Fox HD, meaning buying the Byond receiver set. But I was too lazy to drag my ass to Kristal Astro which at that time was notorious for its long queues and waiting time. So, no thanks. I improvised and purchased the Walking Dead episodes from iTunes and got to watch each episode hours before Astro airing time.

Despite not having Fox HD anymore, I maintained my Astro subscription despite questioning the fee because of the Crime & Investigation (CI) Channel. Other than zombies, I love watching true crime shows (obviously). Forensic Files, Medical Detectives, See No Evil, Hear No Evil, Passport to Murder, Dead Silence, and many more. I would fall asleep with my CI channel still on all night long till morning when I woke up.

So that was how my relationship with Astro went for years until three things happened that led us to grow apart and parted ways. It started when one day I switched on the TV in my bedroom and nothing showed up but it was all fine on my TV in the living room. So, I thought something must be wrong with the wireless transmitter and receiver thingy. After trying and failed to McGyver it to work, I went out to buy a new set. But when I switched to the new set, still nothing showed up. Daym, nothing actually was wrong with the existing set and I wasted money buying the new set. It could be my TV then, but I was so lazy to go buy a new TV, and that was it, no more watching from the TV in front of my bed.

Then I realised that I needed to watch TV to help me fall asleep. So I took my ipad and thus began my fascination and later addiction to watching YouTube videos. Boy oh boy! I uncovered a wealth of true crime videos on the internet including on Facebook and Instagram. At that point, I didn’t need the Astro’s CI channel anymore for my dose of true crime stories. But still I continued paying the monthly subscription fee so that guests would have something to watch during Hari Raya at my place.

Then Covid happened, affecting my routine of going to DST monthly to pay my Astro bills. I was too lazy to make an effort to try to figure out how to make online payments. Besides, I’m old school, so not too online transaction-savvy. In the end, after not paying my bills for months, Kristal Astro broke up with me.

R.I.P Kristal Astro….

Travel Tales

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Travel lovers are surely missing flying in this pandemic time. As for me, I don’t miss the flying part, but I do cherish all my past overseas trips, each with its own tales, funny first impression and culture shock moments. 

I was fortunate that my work gave me the opportunity to go to the UK a number of times. But my first trip to the UK, well..to any western country for that matter, took place when I was still studying. It was back in the 1990s, before there was mobile web, before there was google, before there was iPhone. Me and 4 others were selected as 5 top undergraduates in our batch and were rewarded to participate in the junior year abroad programme, an arrangement that our university had with a partner university in the UK. So off we went, 4 Brunei girls and 1 Brunei boy, all in our early 20s, all going to the UK for the first time. There are specifically 3 amusing moments that left me smiling every time I look back at that trip.   

1. Due-Vate

When we arrived at the UK University, fresh from the airport, we were taken to our accommodation, an 8-bedroom house on campus. We were asked to choose our respective rooms and to sign the inventory list verifying that all the items in the list are there in the room.

In my room, checking the inventory list, everything pretty much was there – bed, 2 pillows, bedsheet, night stand, dresser, mirror, clothing hangers. Then I saw “duvet” in the list. This may sound ridiculous now, but back then, I had not heard of this word and had no idea what it was. I didn’t have a mobile phone, let alone googling what duvet was. I went out of my room to check with the other Bruneians. They too were wondering what duvet was. There we were, supposedly the smartest in our uni batch, asking each other at the hallway “what is duvet?” We even pronounced the word wrong – due-vate. Well, that thing that we use to cover our body to keep warm while in bed, we grew up knowing it and still referring to it as a blanket. 

Duvet

2. You Jump, I Jump

The university is located at a beautiful city southeast of London. We spent the first few weeks there exploring the city’s historic buildings and amazing architecture. We very quickly learned about the short cut to walk to the city centre. Along the way, we also discovered that British pedestrians and cyclists say “cheers” every time we gave way to them, which we later caught on that that’s how they say thank you. The area at the city centre, where the shopping strips and other commercial activities are concentrated, they refer to as the high street. I remember the dismay look on our faces during the first time we went to the high street, when we watched the shops shutting their doors by 5pm. That was the first shopping culture shock that we encountered, because here in Brunei, shops are closed at 9-10pm. But this was in the 1990s. Today many shops in the UK do open until 9-10pm.

One pleasant shopping culture shock was the concept of shopping “outlets”. These are shops located at sites away from populated areas where goods especially name-brand products are sold at lower than their retail price. The nearest shopping outlet from us at that time was one 45-minutes away by train. Curious and with the shopping outlet experience in mind, one weekend we decided to take the train ride and go to the shopping outlet.

None of us then has ever taken a train ride before, except for the mini train at Jerudong Park Playground (does that count?). But, it can’t be that hard, we thought. There are two platforms, one for this way, one for the opposite way. In a true Murphy’s law moment, we went on to go to the wrong platform and boarded the wrong train. It was only when the train was about to move that one of us realised about the mistake, she said “wrong train!” sprung up and jumped out. Then like a chain reaction, each one of us started to jump out. The only boy in our group was the last one to react. By the time he wanted to jump, he hesitated a bit,  got spotted by the train conductor who shouted Oooi!!!. Looking back, we could just get off the next stop and board the right train instead of being drama queens about it.   

Train

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25% Grades 75% Luck

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Last Sunday, my secondary school alumni conducted a mini gathering at a fancy restaurant in Jerudong. I said mini because only less than half of the alumni attended, me being one of the non-attendees. I was free that day but I deliberately didn’t come simply because I wasn’t close with any of them during my secondary school years. As far as I could remember, a number of them were bullies, a number were the bullied ones, a number were snobs, a number were antisocial, a number were weirdos, a number no one even realised they existed, and now they are suddenly on a hugging basis, calling each other bebs, lings, bros. I was one of the antisocial ones back then and still is. Perhaps this is why I never get the alumni gathering concept.

Thanks to the mushrooming this and that alumni WhatsApp groups and of course the social media as a whole, people are able to know the updates (often too much information) on what each is up to even without being in contact or seeing them in person for years or decades even. It is rather striking that those who got the best grades, the top students in class, are not the ones who ended up getting the executive posts in the civil service. To put it simply, none of the smart kids in my schooling classes, even university batch made it above the Group posts. Whereas, those who were the low to average performing students, thrived more in the civil service, a number of them becoming Directors, Permanent Secretaries, even one of them became a Deputy Minister. Wow! I have my own theory as to why this is so. Some said they just got lucky, being at the right place at the right time. One thing for sure, grades got not much to do with one’s career path in the civil service. 

So, to students and parents out there, it doesn’t matter who got first in class, who got straight As, who got first class degree, as the success factors in the career stage of life would be 25% grades and 75% luck. Spare the stress.  

Raya Flatline

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Hari Raya is here again. Interestingly, in the days before Raya, I saw people going all out buying Raya things, candy boxes, fancy cookie containers, serving platters, table cloths, the works. While Covid-19 is still raging elsewhere in the world, it looks like the people of Brunei are not making any compromise in their Raya celebration this year. The Hari Raya 2021 celebration guideline issued by MoH, while urging the public to remain alert, seems to be giving an all systems go as well. Para 2 of it says that Hari Raya could be celebrated by only organising “private events” meaning only inviting family members and close friends. Well…isn’t that how Raya has always been, for family and friends. I don’t recall anyone organising Raya open house inviting strangers or making a Raya goodwill visit to a stranger’s home. The guideline also says that handshakes and hugs are “not encouraged” and “as much as possible avoid” physical contact when greeting. Yep good luck with that. I saw people, ladies especially, not just hugging, but doing the cheek bumpings with total disregard to social distancing. 

For me, with or without the pandemic, I have long lost the excitement for Raya. The only excitement that I got left for Raya these days is for the long Raya public holidays, the long break from work. In 2012, when His Majesty announced about the additional day making the Raya holidays from 2 to 3 working days, that was the only spike in my Raya excitement chart which had been on a flatline for quite sometime. Perhaps the excitement faded with adulthood. But, I would say, the biggest reason is that Raya is just not the same anymore. Im talking about the Raya that I used to know and enjoy, back in the 80s and 90s, when life was simple. Many, if not all, of the things that we fondly associate with Raya celebration have now completely disappeared. 

80s Raya Living Room

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Sonic Boom??

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31 January 2021, 1100++ am – What was that?? Something did happen and we, at least not me, cannot just move on without explanation. Is there anyone investigating though? There has been no official statement or press release to appease the public about this mysterious happening, or at least said that it is being investigated.

Living at the top floor of our building, my windows and glass balcony doors rattle all the time when its windy outside, during heavy rains. But today, the rattling sounded different, felt different. From the sound of it, the rattling sounded faster, like more vibrations per second than the regular rattling during windy days. It was so different that I stopped right in the middle of my living room, mouth agape. I looked out the glass balcony, it was clear and sunny outside, no rain, no leaves flying. So right then I dismissed the sound that I heard as thunder. Instead, the first thing that came to my mind to explain the sound was a super heavy vehicle, like a heavy military tank could be passing by. I don’t recall feeling the floor under my feet shaking, perhaps because I was too focused on bracing myself to what would come next. It was like that scene in monster movies like Godzilla and Jurassic Park where the water in the cup vibrates suggesting something so enormous is thumping its way.

The rattling stopped after about 10 seconds. There was no monster, no military tank. Then, it came to me. I encountered the same situation before that felt exactly like this, not in Brunei, but when I was in Honolulu. It was a sonic boom!

I dare to say that only a tiny number of the country’s public who know about sonic booms, or fighter jets for that matter. Brunei is the only country in the region which does not have or have not had fighter jets. Apart from during the now defunct BRIDEX, there is no way for the wider Brunei population to see fighter jets “in person” and be familiarised with their might and prowess in the sky. Therefore, the possibility of the mysterious loud booms originating from a supersonic aircraft would not even register in their minds.

No Break

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So, my 82 year-old mom slipped while trying to open the bathroom’s door and broke her femur head. There goes her mobility. Well, shit happens. Theres no point blaming the door or anyone. Dwelling on whether the fall could be avoided won’t unbreak the bone. So, we just have to suck it up and deal with it.

The thing about bones is that if they are broken, they will heal themselves. Like the skin when cut, bones also bleed when they break. The resulting blood clots would act like glue. About a week or two, stem cells from the surrounding tissue as well as bone marrow and blood would gather and form soft callus (soft bone) replacing the blood clot. A few weeks after that, the soft callus would become harder. Around 6 weeks after the break, regular bone would replace the hard callus. Then give it some months, the bone would be reshaped to its original shape. These are what I got from the web when googling broken bones while waiting for the doctor to look at my mom at the RIPAS emergency room. At that point, I felt a sense of relief that the bone would heal and my mom would be able to walk again. Little did I expect the hell that my mom, me and my siblings would go through beginning day 2 and the coming weeks.

Oh Gosh! Where do I even begin. For one thing, just because you’re at the hospital, where all the doctors and nurses are, don’t expect them to have your comfort and wellbeing at the top of their priority list. This is not ER, House or Grey’s Anatomy where the doctors are extremely passionate and the nurses dedicate their lives to helping others, they are just fiction, not real. Worse, RIPAS is a government hospital, it is not desperate for your positive yelp review, so don’t expect the doctors and nurses to baby you, entertain all your needs, to care whether you are well-rested or your sleep uninterrupted. 

The Brunei Great Flood and Blackout

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One might say that Brunei is lucky in that its location spared it from major natural disasters like earthquakes or cyclones. I remember being in Quezon City in September 2011 for a meeting right about the time when the powerful typhoon Nesat hit the Philippines. There was a day where we were not allowed to leave the hotel, the hotel’s glass doors and windows were shaking and rattling. Outside we could see branches, leaves and litters flying around. The creepy, eerie sounds of the strong wind sent shivers down my spine. The strength of the wind was nothing that I and perhaps any other Bruneians have ever seen before, and that was just the tail wind of the typhoon. So yeah, we were lucky, but that is no reason to be complacent.

It has been 11 years, but the memories of the chaos in 2009 were still fresh in the minds of Bruneians who lived through it. 

In January 2009, continuous rain battered the country causing flash floods in many areas with water reaching up to 5 feet high. Blocked drains further caused water levels to rise quickly. In rural areas like Kg Sukang, the water level even rose up to 4 meters high. Of course, Brunei had experienced flash floods before that, but the rainfall intensity that January 2009 were more than normal.

Some schools had to be closed as the classrooms were flooded with water. Homes and business establishments were inundated with flood waters. Many roads were flooded and rendered impassable.  

The continuous downpour which started on 09 January 2009 had also caused many landslides forcing affected residents to vacate their homes. Several hilltop houses were in danger of being swept downhill by landslides as retaining walls were on the verge of collapsing. 

The FRD hotline was off the hook with emergency calls. Towing services were overwhelmed with calls to assist flood hit vehicles. 

By 19 January 2009, all hands were on deck. The military with their large trucks, the FRD covered hills with canvases, shelters and packed meals were provided to flood victims whose homes were badly affected, police erected warning signs and blocked flooded roads from traffic.

But nature was not done yet, unleashing its ultimate wrath on 20 January 2009 with the heaviest rainfall battering the country, that would trigger a chain of events, events that the public and private entities perhaps never even factored in their scenarios planning and business continuity plans. The chaos that ensued showed how ill-prepared we were. It was a rude awakening, a manifestation of our complacency, dragging our feet on building disaster preparedness and resiliency. 

20 January 2009 was a Tuesday. It had been raining since 0800+pm. That evening I was at my sister’s house in Kg Tungku, waiting for the heavy rain to stop so that I could go back to my place. By 1000pm the rain kept on pouring and didn’t show any signs of slowing down, so I said the heck with it and decided to brave the downpour and drive home. It was supposed to be just a 12 minutes drive.  Back then there was no WhatsApp or Instagram yet, so no “live reporting” on what were going on out there.

First I encountered a flooded road, totally expected. Eventhough the road was totally submerged, the drainage railings could still be seen and this helped a lot in keeping the car on the invisible road. The likelihood that my car would stall while driving through the flood did cross my mind but the cars in front me got through just fine, so I took a chance. I was driving really slowly and everything was fine until some psycho in an SUV from the opposite lane ploughed through so fast like it was no one’s business. Right then my car was dead. Just great! I switched on my hazard light, waited for a few minutes before restarting the car again. Oh! What a relief, the car came back to life. 

As I drove on, with the rain still pouring, I saw that the first traffic light that I encountered was dead. I began to notice that the surrounding buildings were all dark. The power was down. Talk about bad timing. Little did I know at that time that that was the beginning of the Brunei’s great blackout.

The heavy rain that day had caused the 66,000-volt main power station in Gadong to be submerged in 3 feet of water, tripping the turbine generator. Power was interrupted at 1100pm causing blackouts in a number of areas in Muara and Gadong as well as BSB. Shops at commercial areas of Gadong including the Mall, Batu Besurat, Kiulap were not spared. Traffic lights in the affected areas also lost power. 

Driving in the heavy rain, in the dark, maneuvering every intersection, never had I ever wanted to get home so badly. Then, from afar, I saw it. No, it can’t be! I said to myself. I saw the Kiarong underpass, our country’s famed one and only “tunnel” was almost completely filled with water. How was that even possible.

underpass

Source: Borneo Bulletin, Jan 2009

The underpass is actually equipped with 8 water pumps to drain out excess water completely. It also has a backup generator which automatically switches on in case of power failure. Then what happened? It was later explained that as a safety precaution, the pumps had to be switched off that night because of the overwhelming water flow which was fast submerging not only the water pumps but also the back up power system which could’ve done further damage to the generator. The tunnel was closed off and would only be reopened in the morning of 22 January 2009. 

It had already been 30 minutes of my supposedly 12 minutes drive home that night. After the horror look on my face stood down, I drove around the flooded tunnel, took the roundabout and continued on my journey home. I looked at my watch, it was already past 11pm. As I reached the final stretch of road to my place, I saw our building, it was completely dark, then it dawned on me that the elevators would not be working and I would have to take the stairs. Oh crap! Let’s just say that my unit is at a double digit floor of the building and the stairwell was narrow and completely dark.

Finally I reached my place but instead of feeling relieved, I felt a sense of dread. It was close to midnight. Our building is notorious for being haunted. But, that was the least of my worries. The thing was that other than ghosts, criminals also took a liking to our building, breaking into a number of units. So, I was more concerned about some criminals lurking in the dark  stairwell.  The story about how I got out of this sticky situation was epic, but  that would be covered in another post.

Back to the black out, despite the best efforts of the Department of Electrical Services, normal power supplies would only be restored after four days of mass blackouts. The prolonged power outages had led supermarkets and kedai runcits alike to suffer a lot of losses as frozen food and raw meats went bad, ice creams melted, among other predicaments.

On top of the mass black outs, telephone lines were also down as the flooding had also damaged telbru’s telephone equipment in Gadong. Yep, including the police hotline too. Due to the power supply disruption, some areas suffered lack of DST network affecting mobile phone services. 

It is not an overstatement to say that our first responders were running around like headless chicken especially on the night of 20 January 2009. The FRD had to scramble its manpower to respond to the hundreds of distress calls – flooded homes, falling trees, falling lamp posts, landslides, the works. Police personnel were deployed to control traffic at flooded roads and at intersections with dead traffic lights. The military with their big trucks to assist stranded villagers, using boats at areas even their trucks couldn’t get through. In the midst of the pandemonium, sadly however, they couldn’t get on time to save two people who lost their lives that fateful evening. 

At around 1045pm, residents of a house in Jalan Pasir, Berakas heard a loud bang. A landslide had crashed into the back of the house, caving in the walls of the kitchen and several rooms of the house. All managed to flee except one, a 46 year old woman who was fast asleep at the time of the incident. The wall of her room collapsed on her trapping her under the debris of mud and concrete. Attempts to immediately pull her out were unsuccessful and she was killed. 

The other heartbreaking loss of life happened at the very stretch of road where my car stalled that night. The incident happened after midnight. A man had just fetched his 19-year old daughter from work and was on the way back to their house in Kg Katok. By the time they reached within a kilometer from their home, the road had already become too flooded and could no longer be driven through. The father and daughter decided to leave the car and get home by foot. While walking through the rapid flowing water, the daughter unfortunately slipped and got sucked into the storm drain. Trapped by the drainage railing, efforts by her father and two other men to lift and pull her out failed and she drowned. 

Heavy rains continued to batter the country throughout January and into February before slowing down towards March that year. Hundreds of houses had suffered damages. Some water pipes, roads and sewage systems in a number of places also suffered damages. A concrete bridge at Jalan Kg Tunggulian in Sg Liang even collapsed as a result of the flooding. The heavy rains also led to nearly a million dollars in damages to crops and livestock throughout the country as farms and paddy fields were submerged in water and thousands of chicks perished.  

My Top 5

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For someone who hates water, I must say I’ve ironically put myself through quite a number of water transport rides. The temuai (longboat) ride up the shallow Temburong river; the 45-minutes speedboat ride to Temburong across the Brunei Bay and through meandering riverways; and the Kg Ayer water taxi speedboats all driven by Evel Knievel – were horrifying experiences that left me saying “never again”.  

Of course, not all the rides I experienced were horrifying. Come to think of it, there are a select few experiences that I had back then taken for granted but now consider as rare opportunities that I was so lucky to come upon.

Here are the best 5.

5. Airboat ride, Tutong River, 2015. When people hear about airboats, the first thing that may come to their minds is the Everglades in the US. Airboats are made for gliding across shallow water and swamplands hence they use giant fans instead of submerged propellers. And we all know what’s lurking in swamplands – alligators and snakes. No thanks! But, I didn’t have much choice when my work required me to ride on the airboat in 2015. One look at the airboat, I said to myself, this is not a boat, it’s just a thing sitting on water with a large fan at its back, a flat platform, some seats on it and nothing else. I was nervous at first, fearing that any predator from underneath the water would decide to make a “leap of faith” on the boat, but at least the fan’s super loud noise gave me some comfort that the gators wouldn’t even think to come near us. In the end, it was a pretty unique and interesting experience. 

4. Catamaran ride, Brisbane River, 2009. The two-hulled Catamarans are not just neat-looking, they are also more stable than the typical vessels. Their design allow them to fit in large amount of space. This, coupled with  their flat crossdecks made the catamarans perfect to be used for ferrying services. There are a number of countries that use catamarans for public transportation. So, when my work sent me to Brisbane, Australia in 2009, I wasted no time in taking the opportunity to experience one and headed straight for the Brisbane CityCats, the city’s catamaran ferry service. What a great way to enjoy the stunning view of the city, almost therapeutic. [Im still waiting for our local urban planners to be inspired by the catamaran ferry service for the Brunei river.]

3. Amphibious vehicle ride, Charles River, Boston, 2005. My trip to the US back in 2005 is one of the most memorable trips I’ve ever had. I got to  experience things that I may not have the opportunity to do again. During our stopover in Boston enroute to New York, we only had time to do two leisure activities. Since it was an official trip, it was up to my boss. So, we went for the Boston Duck Tour. We hopped on this funny looking bus, at least that was what I thought it was, just a bus. It began like a normal narrated city tour, then woooo….the bus made a turn and splashed right into the river. It is an amphibious vehicle, able to move both on land and in water. Talk about plot twist. What an amazing city tour! I was all smiles and can’t stop talking about it ever since.

2. Submarine ride, Oahu Undersea, Hawaii, 1998. For a long time, I thought that only the military got to own submarines. That was until I went to Hawaii in 1998. I was among the 30 or so international participants attending a course there. At the end of one of our classes, the course organisers announced that they would take us for a fancy dinner cruise as part of our weekend leisure activities. They also announced the option to go for a submarine tour before the dinner for anyone who would be interested and willing to pay the fees. I remember that it was around $85 and because of this, there were not many takers. For me, it was a no brainer. I’m not a good swimmer, hopeless in treading water, let alone diving. So if I want any chance to see what’s under the sea with my own eyes, I got to take the submarine tour.

The shuttle boat ride was choppy, but thank god we arrived at the submarine before my seasickness set in. As I climbed down the ladder to get into the submarine, I couldn’t believe that I was actually gonna go under the sea, for real. Oh dear, what have I gotten myself into, I said to myself. Inside were two long benches one on each side and we sat facing the round windows. Each one of us was given a piece of paper with pictures of the colourful fishes to look out for, like a checklist. Wow, the view was very mesmerising. The tour  lasted about one hour and I managed to see nearly all the fishes in the list. It was an experience that I will never ever forget.

1. Could there be any water transport experience more epic than a submarine ride? Well, yes. Im talking about the beast of the ocean. Ok ok, not the supertanker, the other one. No, not the cruise ship, the other other one. Yep, the aircraft carrier. Never in my wildest imagination did I ever think I would find myself being on a moving aircraft carrier in the middle of the ocean. Wow! I still pinch myself when I think of it. The plane ride to get to and from the aircraft carrier was an epic feat in itself especially the arrested landing and catapult assisted take off, no roller coaster or catapult bungee fairground rides could even parallel the horror that we went through. But it was totally worth it. 

No Raya, No Problem

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It is 1pm, third day of Raya. Im still in my towel, joyfully whistling Hari Raya song while vacuuming the floor. My cats stared at me looking annoyed. I must say, this pandemic version of Raya is not so bad after all.

I said to my nephews and nieces, now you have a “I remember when” story to tell the future generations. I remember when….. we didn’t celebrate Raya due to the pandemic outbreak back in 2020. They’ve heard so many I remember when stories from me before – I remember when we didn’t have mobile phones, I remember when we didn’t have internet, I remember when we didn’t have smart phones, I remember when we didn’t have YouTube… – and each time the stories never failed to get that intrigued look on their faces. Ok, ok, actually more of the look of horror than intrigued. I must agree, life without Internet is a scenario more horrifying than a zombie apocalypse.

Now, for anyone who thinks that this was the first time a crisis forced a Hari Raya celebration hiatus, let me tell you that it was not. Not, according to my mom’s I remember when archive. It was in 1963 at the aftermath of the December 1962 rebellion. Curfew was imposed as government forces were clearing remnants of the rebels with the shoot-to-kill order. Many of the rebels were killed, among them were people who my parents knew. It was a sad sad period in Brunei’s history.