12-Apr-2025, As I am looking back on my three week trip to Brunei, I feel a mix of emotions. I had a great time in this small and unknown country (unknown to most of the people I know). I am an avid traveler and I love to explore as much of the world as possible. Brunei is a small country on the island of Borneo in South East Asia. Despite its small size; it is rich from its oil and gas reserves. It has a  small population of only 455,000 people and it does not attract much tourism. It is nice to visit for a couple of days at most but after this you will have seen most of what the country has to offer. The country is pre-dominantly Islam and has strict Sharia laws. One section of this law prohibits alcohol being sold at public establishments such as restaurants, bars and even supermarkets, luckily I am not really a drinker so I am not having any withdrawal symptoms.

Since I am here for three weeks, you can already guess that I am not in Brunei for tourism only, but I did have my fair share of exploring the country. I have been sent to Brunei for another installation project. As always I cannot disclose any details of the job, but one thing I can say about the hospital is that it is in located in the Jerudong area; where several prestigious medical facilities are situated. We are doing the installation at the older building of the hospital. This used to be a hospital exclusively for the Royal family but is now opened as a private hospital to the public as well. And the location? Absolute gorgeous… it is situated by the sea and the beach.

I feel honored to be here and doing this project. The people onsite are very nice and cooperative during the installation works. I am honored to be able to talk to the customer and end-users. Seeing the happiness and gratitude on their faces is one of the main reasons I do this work. After more than twelve years in this particular field, I still love my job!

But enough about work, the three weeks in Brunei have also enabled me to do some sightseeing in the evening and weekends. This is time very well spend! I use a well-known dating app to make new friends in Brunei and I struck gold. Online I meet Farah, an amazing woman that is born and raised in this country. In the first week I learned there is not that much to do here but I enjoy the friendly dates I have with Farah. We hit it off from the very first moment. We ended up spending so much together that I decided to write a part two of the Brunei story. This story will focus more on our outdoor activities and our mutual love for a certain bridge.

This post is about my hike in the first weekend and exploring the city by myself.

Behind my hotel there is a large recreational park situated; Tasek Lama Park. My two colleagues and I meet at 7 am to start the hike early and to avoid the midday heat. We don’t do the loop that most visitors do but I convince my colleagues to do a more challenging route. I suggest to walk all the way to the end of the park and take a taxi back.

At 8 am it is already very hot and we are soon drenched in sweat. This gives us an extra (mental) challenge, but I am happy to see my colleagues are just as excited and strong as I am to persevere through this heat. The track has its ups and downs (literally) but it is beautiful and diverse, this is why we do this! We hike a total of 8,3 kilometer and most of the path is very uneven and never really flat. It is  always ascending or descending with the highest point of the track being 192 meter above sea level.  Especially the second part of the hike is more challenging with lots of overgrown plants we have to “fight” our way through. It is obvious that this part of the track is hardly being used.

More rewards came in the form of wildlife that we encounter; wild monkeys jumping through the trees, a small brown snake quickly slithering away and a very interesting spider sitting in his web. Not just an ordinary spider (none of the spiders in Asia are ordinary anyway) but one that appears to have a hard shield on its back, something I have never seen before. I am amazed by its appearance and I take a moment to admire its beauty. I did my best to capture its shield but my phone was not able to capture its beauty in full glory.

After a three hour hike we reached another lake and this marked the end of the trip. The heat is so intense that we can literally wring out our shirts with sweat. But it was a great hike and I really enjoyed the time spent in nature.

We are back at the hotel around noon and I take it easy for the rest of the day. My only other goal this day is finding a memorable souvenir, in the form of a mug. Secondly I also collect (old) money. I find a shop where the owner sells me an old note and a limited edition note from Brunei. Mission accomplished!

The mix of emotions I mentioned at the beginning of this post comes from the fact that I am happy to return home after three weeks (and getting back to my regular yoga routine). I feel sad for having to say goodbye to Farah at the airport.

I will always have a love/hate relationship with airports.

Stay tuned for part two…

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