Hassles and Holidays in Brunei

Daily life 

The children settled in well to life in Brunei and the school. Roger did spectacularly well in his International Baccalaureate Exams. They made good friends form all over the world and their neighbours were very congenial company. We also enjoyed our neighbours some  of whom taught at my school. Friendships were formed which were too last a long time through shared recreational activites.We all enjoyed the help of our maid form the Philipines who looked after us well and got on very well with the children. Maria and I were very satisfied with the move to Brunei.

Holidays

One of the first holidays we had was one of the best-to the Seaside Travelers Inn in Kota Kinabalu. We drove in convoy with our neighbours, the Maddens. The STI was run by a Chinese family the Ongs. The grandfather was the Patriarch and was the retired Police chief from KK itself. Over the years I became friendly with the son James who managed daily operations. The house was set on the beach with beautifully landscaped gardens and a very picturesque restaurant and balcony perched right over the sea. There was a small pool in which the three children and the two Madden boys splashed for most of the day.

I became a regular at the STI: the food was ok and the staff always very friendly. There was a very slow turnover of staff and the cook Jumaidi and his wife Watie were still working there when I left nearly eight years after my first visit. This to me showed they must be doing something right.

The father, the patriarch ran his weekly meetings with his staff in military fashion. Everyone paid very close attention to what he was saying! He could get angry. Right next door, also on the beach was another guest house –Langkah Syabas; another beautiful place but with a very different style of operation. The latter was run by an Australian and his Malaysian wife: there were little ponies in the stables and even Australian sheep wandering around but there was a very different style of management here. The manager was could be abrasive,  of the type sometimes  found teaching in language colleges in Australia. I often saw her dealing with her local staff in an aggressive and rude way even within the purview of guests. It was embarrassing me. There was almost nobody ever at the place. I just don’t know how they made any money. The staff turnover was very high and there were different faces every time I went. Although the rooms were not as good at the STI,  it was always busy.

Over the years and when I came to do my doctoral dissertation I bought a lap-top and did a lot of it at the STI. In latter years I discovered a rapid route via Labuan and Menumbok taking a ferry, speedboat and bus. I could do the journey in about five hours.


There was one holiday –the very first in KK which we would rather forget. It happens to all families. We stayed in the Marina court apartments of the Promenade hotel. Everyone was sick: but  I escaped! The rooms were awful –narrow with no cable TV.

The weather was wet and windy and we ended up cutting the holiday short and going home.

We went one Christmas to Bali and it was not a great holiday either. The children enjoyed the waterslides etc. But the apartment we stayed in was so expensive-and I couldn’t stop thinking about the expense!

 Also we had a misadventure with a company that was selling timeshare properties when we were there: We were whisked off the street by a smiling snake who was shouting at us that we had won a prize! When we got inside we were offered a share in timeshare properties for a lot of money. The Englishman who sold it was very convincing. I swallowed the bait.

After our second year, for the first time in our married lives, we had saved a few thousand dollars.

After a few days I realized I had made a mistake and that would never travel enough to use the properties. I went back claiming ‘customer remorse’. He was actually quite reasonable and reduced payment to one third of the original cost  and extended the time we could use the property to fifteen years. Nevertheless, the money was wasted, down the drain because as we  never used a property even once! How gullible I was!


Another holiday which was a fiasco was the one to Kuching. We were all in the Toyota bouncing along the highway when the aircon gave out. We reached about a third of the way to Kuching when we camped a night in a beach resort. It had been raining very heavily and the whole site was mosquito infested. Everything was damp and the place was empty. It rained and rained –so we decided to go back to Miri and catch a plane!

Rog was not really happy at Cornell in his first year,  and it showed. But we enjoyed Kuching though –it has character.

Hassles

 I  had several run-ins with Travel Agents.  I booked a weekend to Kota Kinabalu on a long weekend. The agent was offering a “two night/three day package”. I booked it and picked up the tickets. The mistake I made was not to look at the times of the flights.

When I got home I discovered what three days and two nights meant: depart Brunei 10.30 pm and return Brunei 8.a.m! I just couldn’t believe they would sell these flight times as ‘two nights three days’. Anyway I had a huge row with the agent  and demanded my money back claiming it was misleading advertising. He wouldn’t budge – and so basically they were stealing my money.  We ended up shouting at each other and he then wrote to me demanding an apology and threatening me with legal action. In the end I had to retract the accusation.

I regretted doing that, but I had no choice. If the MOE had heard about this, I might have had my contract terminated. that is what I mean by stress and insecurity. It was unpredictable and you had no protection as a foreigner..



Skirmishes with Immigration

The authorities were always introducing new regulations to annoy foreigners

There were really memorable ones: one was near the end coming back from Labuan on a Sunday on the ferry. At Muara in Brunei I filled in my allowance for alcohol form and then joined a queue to have the details to be typed into a database by a secretary. The queuing was a new initiative and was taking several minutes. I asked the person in the back room why we now had to queue with a form.

He was curt like some immigration officials are in Brunei. I continued to badger him for an explanation at which point he exploded and asked me which school I worked at.

I told him to mind his own business. This went on for several rounds and I was very close to getting into serious trouble with him.i suppose i knew i was near the end of my contract and he couldn't really cause trouble for me.

The second occasion was when Maria was coming back from Mexico. She arrived at Brunei airport at 2 a.m. having travelled half way around the world from Veracruz to Mexico to Los Angles to Singapore and finally to Brunei. The whole journey had taken about three days because she had had a twelve hour delay in L.A.

When she was departing form Brunei the airline clerk (remarkably) had alerted us to the fact that her re-entry pass was out-of date. When Maria was in Mexico I had checked this out with Ratna at CfBT and she had said there was no problem because Maria had a dependent pass: on her return to Brunei , I was assured, she would be issued a special pass on her return to Brunei and she would be asked to get the re-entry pass renewed within a few days of her arrival back in Brunei.

But when she arrived form Singapore I could see there was a problem from the doors outside. This official was remonstrating with Maria and ushering her to the side: I could see the angry body language.

This was enough for me so I burst in through the doors and accosted the official. He wanted to send her back to Singapore. I said if she went then I went with her and he(the official ) would have to pay for us both! There was quite a prolonged altercation in this vein and eventually Maria was taken aside and given a special pass.

The next day CfBT were given an apology by immigration. The officer had not followed the correct procedure. was good for the children. They all settle in well to ISB and Roer did spectacularly well in his IB. they all enjoyed the school and the frinds they met there were form all over the world

We never got an apology though! The officer clearly thought he could mistreat Maria as she looked like a Philipina or Indonesian worker.