Why Do People Hate This Country?

Today, we are traveling to the country that made celebrating Christmas in public illegal. This is Brunei, one of the smallest countries in Southeast Asia, but also the second richest because of its huge oil reserves and natural gas production. The country is controlled by the Sultan of Brunei, who, after the passing of Queen Elizabeth, became the longest reigning monarch in the world and has been in control of the country for over 54 years. The natural resources that have been extracted from the country have made the Sultan one of the richest men in the world. And according to the Guinness Book of World Records, he lives in the world's largest residential palace. If you've ever heard of the country of Brunei before this video, it's probably not for reasons that I've already mentioned. The Sultan of Brunei drew international condemnation when he implemented Sharia law back in 2014. This allows for archaic punishments like stoning for acts of adultery and homosexuality. But if there's one thing that we've learned after traveling to over 100 countries, it's that a country's people and their government are not the same.

And we believe that there are good people everywhere.

But oftentimes people get a bad rap for the decision that the leadership of their countries make. So we're going to give Brunei a chance. And for the next 36 hours, we're going to be exploring both sides of the country. From the ultra luxurious being one of the only seven star hotels in the entire world, to a local village that sits above the water on stilts. This is Brunei.

There's where Brunei gets all its money.

Yes.

We have Brunai. 2 and a half hours later, we have just landed in our 105th country of Brunei. Even though we only have 36 hours here, we are going to do our best to squeeze in as much as possible.

And I have not been this intrigued.

By a new country that we visited in a very long time. So try kind of forgot we were in a Muslim country and we were the only ones in the immigration line wearing shorts.

Hello, Mr. Bushen.

That's us. Normally we just show up and we wing it, getting from the airport to our hotel. But we've heard that the country of Brunai, even though it has almost half.

A million residents, has only 50 taxis.

So we book transportation with our hotel.

Welcome to the Empire. Thank you so much. Wow, this is crazy.

So this is what a seven star hotel room looks like?

Oh, yes. I've been sleeping on the floor the last four nights. It's a good bed. Seven star bed. We have this huge balcony. Someone has fluffed. This is that what you do at seven star hotels?

Whoa.

No way. I'm pulling the curtains from the bed. We have this thingy that I've never seen before. The mini bar is included. I did not mean to be that forceful with the drawer here we have this closet, but just wait until you see the bathroom.

I'm so happy. All the amenities you could ever want. Probably top three biggest showers I've ever been in. I didn't shower for four days except for in the river, so it kind.

Of splurged for the waterfall.

Also, there's a separate toilet room. And we have one of these guys in the middle of the day. I've never used that.

Can we just cut to the toilet that we were using last week?

10 out of 10.

Does it count as coming to Brunei if we just stay here the whole time?

A little steamy.

As tempted as we both are to just hang out here at this fancy.

Hotel all night, we decided to choose.

The more memorable experience.

And we're gonna head into town to check out the country's largest night market.

And try a few of their most popular foods.

We did it.

We made it out. It's a miracle.

Hello. Hello.

Thank you. See you later.

See to the night market.

Wow.

This is awesome. It's been so long.

You got us a new subscriber.

You're so sweet.

We've been here for five seconds and I already feel like I'm going to cry. I walked past a sign that said tofu cheese, and I had to try it. So I ordered one serving. And this sweet, sweet local who was making it not only gave me two servings, but she also added in this huge thing of chicken and didn't charge us a dime. She said, welcome to Brunei, and she just gave us all of it. I knew. I knew I would love these people. I just had a feeling. So she took the sticks, she reheated them on the grill, and then she painted this sauce on it. But there's also extra sauce. Okay. My first local street food in Brunei.

Wow.

Oh, my gosh.

I needed something to drink after that spicy sauce. I think I overdid it a little bit. I read that they have these gigantic delicious juices, and they are everywhere. Like, every other stall is juice, juice, juice.

Also juice.

We're maybe like a fifth of the way through. This one is lemon with basil seeds. I don't think I've ever had basil seeds before. Extremely refreshing.

Let's get going. So we have four things that we were hoping to try when we came to this market. And the cheese tofu was not even one of them. So we still have a long way to go.

We read that this night market was famous for this dish called Rodejong. It is basically, Whoa, big. An omelette on a piece of bread.

Oh, my gosh. I'm gonna drop it.

So they cracked a couple eggs. They fried them on the griddle. He very craftfully folded the egg underneath the bread and then added what looked like barbecue sauce, mayo, and chili sauce.

I feel like anywhere else in the world, this would be a late night comfort food. But I'm pretty sure alcohol is illegal here, so.

Oh, it's hot.

Yeah.

I don't know why I wasn't expecting breakfast.

If I had to guess, when the British were here, there was alcohol. That's how this originated. But I don't know much.

We're making up history here.

Do not quote us on this.

Wow.

Thank you. Thank you so much.

These people. Next up, I'm pretty sure this is one of the most popular foods in the whole country. It's called.

Parentheses bear us food. It's wrapped in a banana leaf when you open it up.

Really simple.

Anytime.

I can just eat rice with my hands.

Did you?

Yeah, I got one of these.

You got a whole pancake.

Just to give you an idea of how big the pancake was before she cut it up.

It's bigger than my face. How many people eat one of these? For 1%, they can share pot. You hear that? I'm not eating it.

So there was a blog post that I read on the Internet of all the foods that we needed to try.

Here in the market. And there were three different desserts.

Originally, I was gonna get one, and everything's been so cheap here. I just had all three. We're gonna start with the fried bananas.

More amazing than I expected. Probably the one I was least excited about.

Though I would consider myself somewhat of a donut connoisseur.

I've never had a mustache to pull out when I said that.

A donut connoisseur. Apparently, Brunai has their own style of donuts. They have extra cinnamon in them.

If that was fresh, that would be the best thing I've ever put in my mouth. But it's 8:47 at night, and I don't think anybody's making fresh donuts in this diner. And last but not least, my most ridiculous purchase of the night. Did you hear that? Let's do that one more time.

It shook the table.

That is is the thud of the largest pancake I have ever seen in My life. Whoa, baby. Look at that fluffy doughy. The inside is filled.

With crushed peanuts and sweetened condensed milk.

Wow. I feel very self conscious right now because I'm eating and I hear people talking about us over here. They watch our videos and I'm just eating on camera. I'm gonna make eye contact and see if they come over.

I heard my name. My hands are. I've been watching your YouTube five years now.

I love you guys.

I love you too.

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One of the weirdest things about exploring this place is it could probably hold.

Thousands, maybe even tens of thousands of people.

And it feels like we're the only ones here. It's almost a little spooky.

Automatic sad news this morning. Kara has been feeling a little under the weather ever since we went and stayed with the tribe. Yesterday we were hopeful that she was getting better. Today she woke up feeling worse. So I'm gonna let her sleep in.

For a few hours this morning while I give you a tour around this massive property.

But since I'm the one doing the.

Tour, we're gonna do things a little differently.

I've got my running clothes on, I've got a map. And for the next hour, we're going to go on a running tour of this hotel before we have to check out.

This is the outside of the gold plated lobby.

Let's go this way.

Swimming pool number one. There are five swimming pools and I think this is the biggest swimming pool I've ever seen with my own two eyes. One of seven restaurants. This is still the same pool. The kids pool, the water slide, palm trees by the pool. Feels like the ocean. This is how you know a pool is absolutely gigantic. There are paddle boards and kayaks that you can take out on the pool. You can rent bikes.

Beach kids play area. We've got some dolphins swimming through the grass. That's interesting. This gives you a true scale of just how big the property is. And there are more buildings that you can't even see from here. If you get lost, there are actually road signs inside.

The hotel feels kind of like a.

Private city with no permanent residence. This does not feel like a hotel. This is definitely a first. A theater. Wow. It looks like a proper theater. Look at these seats. Do people from outside the hotel come to watch movies? Okay, that makes more sense. The full snack set up. I mean, this is a movie theater. Honestly, everyone here has been amazing. From all the people that we've met at the hotel to all the people we met last night at the night market. Everyone just seems happy that we're in Brunei and so happy to show it off to us. Next, we try to find the country club.

Hello.

This is supposed to be one of the nicest golf courses in all of Asia and it was designed by Jack Nicklaus. I would love to know how that came about one day. Jack. Nicholas, just get a call from the Sultan Brunei and say, hey, could you.

Design a golf course for me?

It's probably exactly what happened. If you do want to ride and not have to run the whole property, those buggies will take you anywhere.

All right.

We have made it to the country club. Inside this building are two of the things that I'm most excited to show you.

Good morning.

How are you? I just wanted to see around. The red carpet feels very Fancy. Complimentary pool tables. 12 badminton courts. We also have an indoor basketball court.

Close.

Indoor swimming pool with marble floors.

Or Mexican.

Okay. Okay. So if you don't want to run outside in the steaming heat like I am, you can run on one of these treadmills with this view of the golf course in the ocean.

Thank you. Okay, so this is the second of the seven restaurants that I found. Just like the rest of the property, this place keeps Going and a gym just for females. So we have two outdoor tennis courts and on the back side of that, the high net. That's a driving range.

Wow.

Once again, I don't know why I'm surprised, but it is a proper bowling alley. I do feel a little guilty about this, but it was only 6 Brunei dollars for an entire game of bowling. So I'm going to attempt the quickest game ever. Sunil was the only employee working at.

The bowling alley and I was the only one bowling. So I thought it'd be fun to.

Ask him to join me for a game. They're longer than I remember.

Bowling in an empty bowling alley with a stranger is not what I thought.

I'd be doing with my 36 hours in Brunei.

But it turned out to be one of the highlights bites.

Oh, it was so close. All right, final score.

Wow. Bye. Thank you. What an experience.

All right, tour continues.

Okay, I've got one more place I want to check out and then I should probably head back and check on Kira.

All right.

There are still two more pools somewhere, a few more restaurants, but I think you get the picture.

This feels more like an all inclusive.

Resort where not everything is free. Like it's a very fancy hotel with tons of options. And for something that considers itself a seven star hotel that you can book.

For under $300, I would say it's decent value.

Probably worth checking out if you come to Brunai. And we are back with the building where we start. This main atrium area that is six stories tall and has pillars that are made from marble that they took from Italy. And that is actual gold plate. This makes it feel like a seven star hotel.

Well, unfortunately, Kara still isn't feeling well, so you're stuck with me for the rest of the day. This is the type of monkey that I'm hoping to see. The ones with the huge nose. Hey, how are you? Fine. Good, good. Nice to meet you. Nice meet you. Here we're watching our van tour. So I was asking our taxi driver yesterday why there were so few taxis in the country and he said it's because pretty much everyone here owns a car. Brunei actually has one of the highest ownership levels of cars. There are 1.5 cars per capita here in Brunei. So, like everybody has a car. So there's just not really a need for taxis in the country.

Before heading to the water village, we made a quick pit stop at the.

Oman Ali Zayful mosque.

And apparently the domes on top are made of real gold.

So we are about to head over to the water village, where over 5,000.

People live full time. There are only about half a million people here in Brunei, so 1% of their entire population lives in this village above the water.

And I believe it's the largest overwater.

City in the entire world. And diet, this is your job? Yeah. You drive a water taxi? Normally, so I figured there would be a bridge or something, but the only way to get to the village is by boat. And this is your dad?

Yeah, my dad.

Well, you look so young. Yeah. Where? Where. Where you come from? Usa. Oh, so far.

No way. Okay. We've been in the boat for less than five minutes, and we've already spotted our first crocodile sunning itself on the beach. And it was kind of creepy how quickly it just disappeared into the brown, murky water.

So what do you do with the trash? Put it in the water.

Like, we compose it at the jetty. And, like, we have the boat there. That's the garbage boat.

So just on the bank, beyond the water village is where the crown prince has built his palace, which is the.

Largest residential palace in the entire world, with over 1700 rooms.

It's pretty crazy just looking at the contrast. Nice to meet you. Yes, to meet you. Sweet. What are the chances we see monkeys?

Let's try our luck.

So we've just dropped Dayat's dad off, and now we are heading into the mangroves in hopes of seeing some crocodiles and monkeys with big noses. Although neither one of them seems super confident that we would actually see a monkey, or at least not one close up.

Is this where they normally hang out? Yeah.

Wow. They're so sneaky.

It's crazy how quickly we transition from the city to the jungle. Just a few minutes ago, we were at a big golden mosque in the middle of a modern city, and just a short boat ride away, it feels like we have just been transported to the middle of the jungle.

Whoa.

This crocodile has a crab trap, and he's trying to get the crab out of the trap.

No way.

Dyad has my expectations set pretty low for this trip, but we have already seen two eagles, three crocodiles, and we just got close enough to the monkeys to see their big nose. I thought if we even got to see them today, it'd be from very far away with them jumping around in the trees. Very. But they were just hanging out on the edge of the bank. Apparently, they're very scared of humans. So as we got closer, they ran off into the jungle. But that was cool. Wow. I love wildlife encounters.

Another one.

Oh, it has a Baby.

Oh, Cara would love this. Just hiding in the tree right there.

Hey, we have the same mustache.

Whoa. That one's nose is huge.

Did we just get super lucky with the monkeys, or are there always that many?

Yes, we are super lucky today.

Dyat did a really good job of setting my expectations low for the monkeys. And then we saw so many, and we got so much closer than I thought we were going to. And those last ones that we saw had the really big noses. Okay, we're heading to the village now.

Okay.

Yeah. All right.

I'll take you to see some monkeys. Yeah.

Nice work. Everyone's safe and sound. I told him next we should go pick some people up and try to make some money as a water taxi.

What do most of the people that live here do for work?

Most of them do, like, water safety drivers. Some of them are working with the government. Some of them also like going fishing, and they sell the fresh fish to the market. The population is declining because most of them are moving to the land.

Why is that?

They have, like this some sort of the housing scheme.

So the government will give them money to move to land.

Yeah. We have high school, the green building, fire station.

Kind of rare to see a fire station with boats in it.

Police station, the mosque.

Did not expect to see a monitor lizard in the middle of the village. That's incredible. I just thought the safari was over. We're home. Okay. Now Dayat and Amal are taking me to their home, which they share with Dayat's parents. So you have two kids?

Yes, I have two kids.

And they walk around up here. Are you scared they'll fall off?

No, they're used to it.

Wow, this house is really big.

Yeah, because his mom is running a small business.

Oh, it's a restaurant as well.

This is the living room.

That's you? Yeah. Hello.

This is the toilet? Yeah. Oh, wow.

It just goes straight down to the water.

Okay, so no fish. It's pretty incredible. It's really way bigger than I expected. So it's dad's workshop, mom's restaurant, plus five bedrooms and a living room for everyone to hang out.

Hello.

Oh, never mind. See you later. So Diet's mom has cooked us dinner. Is that what we're calling this? At 5, we've got some rice with some spicy sauce and a drumstick.

Is that okay? The spicy?

No, I'm just kidding. This feels so weird eating without Cara. Normally, she's the one that tries the food, and then she goes, yum.

How old are you?

I am my mom.

6. 5.

Boy.

It was spicy. Okay, we're gonna take a little tour around the village.

Wow. Oh, it's a bit rocky.

I've got to pay attention to where I'm walking and not what I'm filming. Does anyone ever fall off? Yeah. Oh. This is kind of reminding me of a more modern version of the floating village that we visited in Peru. Is it normal for it to be mud, or is it usually water? Does this happen every day or it's the season.

Every day.

Welcome to Lunasa. Thank you. Nice to meet you. Yeah. Oh, that's very cute. It makes me miss Cara. Fresh water power. It's a surprisingly normal living situation, minus the walkways, the fact that you have to take a boat to get here, and that the houses are actually over the water.

See, what am I doing? I never film myself just walking around like this. I just don't know where to point the camera with. Whoa. There is no way I'd be brave enough to ride a bike down this pathway. I was just saying I'd be too scared to ride a bike. Okay, there he goes.

So we just transitioned from the wood walking platform to the new one that they've built. This is the modern version of the water village, complete with handrails and concrete. Do you prefer the new version?

Yes.

The lodge right here behind me is where Kara and I were supposed to be staying tonight, but because she's not feeling well, we just booked another night at the Fanc Hotel so she could just sleep in the bed all day. So when they built the big, new fancy bridge, they had to knock down some people's homes, and this is where they moved them. It looks like an apartment complex on the water. So this might be what the future of the water village looks like. If you had the choice, would you rather live here or your home here? Yeah, it's better. It's better the grocery store. Don't even have to go to the mainland if you don't want to.

Growing up in the south of the United States, there are few things that sounded more foreign to me the first time I heard them than the call to prayer. And I've actually come to really love it. Just as a reminder that I'm traveling somewhere that is so different from home. Like, I just associate the sound that I'm hearing right now with the exact kind of traveling I want to be doing.

Traveling to a place that's different from what I consider normal and talking to people who think differently.

And I wish I had more poetic words, but this, for me, just feels like such A surreal experience sitting in a water village, watching a beautiful sunset and listening to the call to prayer from two different mosques. This would be a perfect moment if Kara was sitting right.

Feels a little scarier at night. Okay, so we've come to the restaurant that's right behind Dayad's house. Hello.

Hello.

This one is actually dried fish. And then this mackerel fish, we just fried it. This one is anko, which I believe in English is spinach.

It's actually sagon.

Okay.

Mixed with warm water.

I didn't even know that you could eat a tree until last week, and now I'm having it twice in one week.

Okay, so this it?

That's it.

That's it.

Wow, look at this. It's just turned into, like, a hard jelly.

This is not chopstick.

Okay.

You can't break it.

Don't break it, don't break it.

Put that here and you twist.

Yeah, put it in.

Twist, twist.

You dip into the sauce.

And this is a durian sauce.

It's a durian sauce, but be careful. It's very hot. You cannot swallow when it's really hot.

Because it's going to stick in my throat.

This is a dangerous food. So this is the national dish of Brunei. Is that good?

Try a bit.

And swallow.

Don't chew, don't chew it.

Swallow.

Feels so weird eating something and not chewing. So no one chews it?

No.

Wow. So you just swallow it whole. And I can feel the warmth just going all the way down my.

This would be such a confusing food to me, except for the fact that I've seen every process from cutting down the tree, shaving it to stomping it, to letting it ferment, to then drying it and turning it into flour. It's like really sticky, gelatinous jelly that has pretty much no taste. It's just a vessel to get the other tasty things to your mouth.

That was a lot to swallow. I need to do a smaller portion. The cats are waiting for the leftovers.

Okay, thank you. Bye.

Thank you.

We only had a short amount of time here in Brunei, and obviously it didn't exactly go as planned. But once again, our time here has been a great reminder of why we never like to judge a country by the decisions of its leadership. All of the locals that we interacted with, from the night market to the hotel, hotel, and especially here in the water village, were so kind and so excited to show off their country. We weren't exactly sure what to expect when coming here, but we are so glad that we gave Brunei a chance.