Good evening Singapore and welcome to episode 25 of Sleepless in Singapore. Today is Sunday the 7th of July 2024. My name is Julian and today I am going to tell you about a trip to Brunei and then moving on from there to a couple of other interesting destinations I believe.

This past week two things happened that I thought are interesting. A. There are more than a thousand downloads for this podcast now which I think is amazing, way more than I thought there would be and I guess I am a little bit proud of. And B. I talked to a friend quite a bit away, a distant friend so to say and he mentioned that he is listening to the podcast and that he likes some of the stuff and he didn't like other things. Long story short, if you are listening, friend or not, let me know. You can leave a comment but obviously you can also just write an email. Julian@sleepless.sg. Just drop me a line. No need for feedback if you don't want to but it's just really interesting to me to see who of you is actually listening to this. And also it obviously motivates me to keep going.

All right so Brunei today. Brunei happened after I came back from Bali and Timor-Leste. So please make yourselves comfortable, relax and let my voice be your guide to a restful night. I don't really remember why I went to Brunei but I do remember I had a lot of fun there. I was only for another day or two but during that time I saw a lot. And I do remember I stayed at this hostel kind of accommodation with a former dentist. His name was Bell. I have no idea if he still exists or if the hostel still exists. I'll try to look that up later and potentially leave a note in the comments or in the link section. And he had the most interesting stories about his past and about how he moved here. And obviously I don't want to give away all his stories. They are his to tell, not mine. But I can promise you he took great care of his guests.

On the very first day he took me and I think another couple out as a guide I guess on a boat tour down Brunei River. And he's a great guy. He was very knowledgeable. He showed us everything from the local fauna to the king's palace. Then after that we went to this little village that's completely built on the water on these like wooden posts. And then I think he took us to a market, like a wet market which I always love. And he made us try different local food and showed us different local customs. And we went to the palace or I'm not sure if it was a palace. Might have been a mosque with a golden rooftop that according to local legend is made out of gold, completely real gold, the whole rooftop. Looks quite golden on the picture. It's not the palace. It's the Omar Ali Saifuddin mosque. Very impressive.

And then I had maybe one of the best, definitely one of the cheapest haircuts I ever had in my life. I went to the barber. It was, I don't know, here it says it was four dollars. And it was the haircut and it was the beard trim. And I got a massage with this weird kind of thing. The barber put over his hand almost like a glove and it was like there to exert some force. And I got a proper massage out of that for not like a little banging left and right like usually at the barber, at least for like 10 minutes.

Strangely I do not really remember a lot about the local food, which as you know by now is a thing that I'm always interested in and that I always try to do a lot or try a lot. I do remember we had a mediocre okonomiyaki, which very obviously is not local food. And we had a pizza, which also very obviously is not local food. So yeah, aside from that wet market, I'm not really sure what kind of food we had. What I do remember from the local customs is that there is no alcohol. Alcohol is banned in the whole country. I think there are very few exceptions. I'm not 100% sure if that's 100% legal or not. But I think at the hotel you could get beers at least. And also our host had a way to organize a couple of beers so we could have a beer in the evening.

And then also what was very interesting, the next day he kind of almost was storming into my room, putting down a little carpet and he said like, "Look, if anyone asks, this has been here the whole time, right?" And I almost expected to be in trouble because the thing wasn't right or it wasn't there often enough or from the beginning. But yeah, nobody came. But apparently, as the guy later explained, there is a law that every room must have, or every room where somebody is sleeping or every room where guests are sleeping, I'm not sure of the details, but basically every room has to have a little prayer carpet. So yeah, it's a very strict Muslim country.

What I also remember from Brunei was the airport and that is because it was very empty. And I don't know if it's always like that. I actually might be able to tell you in a couple of weeks because Nat and I, we are going back to Brunei and I want to see if it is still what it used to be many years back. But back then the airport was very empty, very clean, very nice airport, but basically I was the only person there. Also on my flight to Manila, I was almost the only person. And I don't know, I can see here on my ticket that I have in front of me that it was September 11, so maybe that's still not a date where everyone feels comfortable to fly for superstitious reasons. But back then, basically empty plane, basically empty airport, but didn't bother me. I even have a picture here from a very old Instagram story that says "nice airplane food, Royal Brunei Air". So I think I was happy with the flight then.

When I landed in Manila, it was raining cats and dogs. And I kind of only remember that I met this Polish guy who was a lot of fun, sadly forgot his name, but he and I from the same hostel, we spent basically only half a day or so in Manila. And I think we went to the cinema. No idea what we watched, but we went to the cinema in one of the shopping malls. Can't say which one here. And we had a pizza again. And then after my half day stint again in Metro Manila, which kind of made Manila the most visited or the most often visited city during my trip, because on my way to El Nido and then back from El Nido and then one stop over before and then this stop over, I think I stayed in Manila four times, but always only for a day, if even. And I think until today I never stayed much longer. Maybe next time I should take two or three days to get to know the city better.

Anyway, from Manila I was flying to Palau. And Palau, A, back then was probably the furthest away I have ever been from home. And B also was the most special place, I guess. The least known, I don't know. But all in all, Palau was amazing. It was quite expensive. They have a lot of American products there, like US American, which I believe might be because it's in the very, very, roughly in the vicinity of Guam, which is US American, right? If you look at a map, Palau is somewhere in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. And it's this beautiful, beautiful island with the most amazing beaches.

I think I spent maybe three or four days or even five in Palau. I stayed at this tiny hostel where I met amazing people, a Chinese couple. The guy was a photographer and he also knew how to draw. And they took me in like family. They kind of made me family during my few days there. There was another guest, like another Chinese couple. There are a lot of Chinese tourists in Palau or especially at the hostel I was staying. And I remember the first evening they took us out, we drove around a bit and I was trying to fly my drone. And I got some very nice aerial shots from that. There is this pink house, which I don't know, some kind of official building, government building. I'm not 100% sure. It's super relaxed. And I remember they invited me to a Chinese restaurant that was quite nice. I really liked it.

And then luckily they convinced me to tag along on two dive trips in two consecutive days. And I know they had to convince me because one dive trip was, I think, 120 US dollars. And I thought that is like a ton of money back then and I didn't really want to pay that. And I wasn't doing scuba diving back then. So I thought, what's the point? But I'm very, very, very happy that they managed to convince me because we went on these like dive boats, but nice big dive boats with like four engines in the back. And well, aside from this fact that at the first dive site I crashed my drone after only flying it maybe three or four times, it was absolutely amazing.

The drone I crashed because I was starting it from the boat and it did not have proper GPS or proper GPS signal. And I thought that's no problem because usually the drone was hovering on the same spot because it has this like camera and sensors to the bottom. And I think it can see the change of the ground. But obviously out on the ocean, there's only water, everything looks the same. GPS signal was not there. And then there was like a little bit of wind, I guess. So the drone was moving sideways and I was panicking and I wanted to move it back towards the boat. But instead when it was going towards the cliff that was there, I pushed the wrong button and I ran it full speed right into the cliff and then, well, it ran into the cliff and then it fell into the water. And luckily one of the divers recovered it. So at least I have the files on the SD card, but I could never revive the drone. So yeah, it was a very expensive boat trip.

But it was also one of the best boat trips in my life because after that first dive site, we went on a two hours, always straight trip across the ocean to a very remote island. Now obviously Palau is always, is already a very remote island. But then we went from Palau to the northern end of Palau, which apparently only once in a while people go at all. And that is exactly how it looked. There was nothing, like literally untouched nature, blue waters. I'm looking at the pictures here, it's very hard to describe. But I've seen nothing alike before and honestly also not that much after. Probably never after. Imagine the most beautiful beaches in the Philippines or in Indonesia and then it's just much better even in Palau.

So we're at that beach, we take a shit ton of pictures and there were a couple of girls, I believe Chinese girls, they were bringing these mermaid tails for the girls. So I have a lot of pictures of girls in mermaid tails on my computer. And of course when they made fun I also wore the tails myself, which looks interesting. And then we had a barbecue. The boat people, they brought really nice food, very, very good meats, very nice salads, like a proper barbecue at this most remote place in the world. And I remember I was sitting there and I was just very happy. And then I remember going back with the boat for two hours, quite wet from snorkeling still. And because we might have had a couple beers on that island, I also remember I had to stop the boat at least five times to jump in the water and, you know.

And then again in the evening we were sitting in this hostel, which almost looked like someone's living room and we were sitting there and I was watching Chinese TV shows. I didn't understand a single word, but this family was taking me in and giving me food and snacks and having me watch TV with them. And yeah, it's a little sad. I don't have contact to anyone basically because we also did not really understand each other. They weren't speaking English a lot and obviously I don't speak Chinese or Mandarin. But looking at all these old pictures, one of them even says, and another Instagram story picture even says, "Dinner with my new Chinese family." That was really awesome.

And then the next day, we kind of had a similar day. So it's a bit boring to describe that in a podcast, but I can promise you it was just as beautiful as the day before. I had a weird little encounter with one Chinese girl who saw I had a, what she thought, proper camera. I had the Fuji X-T3 and a 56 millimeters prime lens back then. And she asked me if I could take a couple pictures of her and I said, "Sure, why not?" And then she went on and on posing at some pier in front of the blue waters. And until today, I have at least a hundred pictures of this girl in her swimsuit posing like a photo model.

Also on that pier, there was this boy on the bike who wanted to show me that he can do a back flip from the pier in the water. I also have that on my pictures. And then scrolling further, we even went to a better place than the day before. I'm looking at one picture here. You know how the ocean gets this beautiful turquoise color when there is the sand, white sand and there's just a meter or two of water on top of it? I'm standing in the middle of that and in every direction there's, well, behind me there's 200 meters of water and in front of me there's only water, only of that color. Really beautiful. Never seen anything like it before or after. I once went to the Maldives and I thought it's beautiful there. This was twice as good. All right, looking at all that now, I really think I have to go back.

And then there was another night, another dinner, and there was this one guy. Again, I forgot the name. He drew a portrait of me and it looks quite nice. He was a photographer and he showed me his pictures later. He's doing like dive photography. I've never seen so many beautiful, beautiful fish. And also he showed me his drawings and again, quite nice and obviously very nice of him to draw me. And then sadly I had to leave Palau already. I was doing all of that completely by myself. No friends, no family anymore. So it was even harder to say goodbye to the friends I made there and to be completely alone again.

But my next stop was Yap, which is maybe an hour north of Palau. And the way it works, by the way, is there is one American Airlines. Is it American Airlines? Well, there is an American Airline. I don't know which one and it's flying from Manila in the Philippines to Palau. And then a bunch of people get out in Palau, a bunch of people get in in Palau and then it's going from Palau to Yap, which is in Micronesia. And then from Yap, the same plane is going to Guam and again, dropping off a few people, getting a few more on and going to Guam. And then from Guam, I don't know, I guess it might be going to the US from there, like to mainland US.

Anyway, I went to Yap and while diving in Yap was a little bit disappointing, I heard from the divers there and also snorkeling was a little bit disappointing for me for more than one reason even. A, I don't like snorkeling in general, I actually really hate it because I always get water in my mask. The reason I never tried scuba diving is because I thought I already hate snorkeling, how can I like scuba diving? And then I tried scuba diving and then when you have your pretty much unlimited air supply on your back and you can just breathe and the second you have a little water in your goggles, you just breathe out through your nose and then the water is gone again. So it doesn't matter that I have constantly a little bit of water coming on or coming in the mask where my beard is, my mustache, it just doesn't matter. But I didn't know that back then, so I thought diving must be worse than snorkeling. And I already didn't like snorkeling, so I only went snorkeling when I had to or at least when I felt I had to because I'm in a place where you have to.

So I did a bit of snorkeling back in Palau, didn't really like it, would really love to go diving there now. And then in Jaap I also went snorkeling and I didn't like that because in general I don't like snorkeling, but also the dive school I went to, they took me out on a boat and then they dropped me there in the water and they said, "Here's your snorkel spot." And fair enough, I was wearing a life vest, but…or actually was I wearing a life vest? I wasn't even wearing a life vest, they just dropped me there in the water to snorkel and they said, "Okay, and we'll pick you up again in an hour when you're done with snorkeling and we'll just move over there to the dive site." And they went back in the boat and I was…to me it looked like I was in the middle of the ocean completely alone, nothing but my snorkel and my mask and the boat was leaving. And it wasn't just leaving over there, it was gone. I mean, if only your head is coming out of the water you cannot look crazy far, so I didn't see the boat anymore, I didn't see anything and I thought, "Great, so this is where I die." Those of you who don't know, I hate snorkeling and I'm not a great swimmer and I was there, it wasn't super wavy, it wasn't super windy, it wasn't getting dark, it was, I'm sure, perfect conditions, but I still thought it's very irresponsible of that dive school and I also really hated it. So I was…I didn't have a lot of choice what to do, right? So I was snorkeling up and down a bit and then luckily I found a big rock and I don't even really want to say that because usually when you dive one of the first things you learn is don't touch anything you see, don't touch the marine life, don't walk on the reef or whatever, obviously, for very obvious reasons, but I found this big rock and there was a little coral and stuff on it, but I was so happy I found that rock because I could stand on it and my head was out of the water that I was just standing there for an hour and I apologize to all marine life and to the ocean and to humanity and fishity in general, but yeah, I was standing there probably ruining some precious rock or some precious coral because I was just scared. I was in the middle of the ocean and no boat, nothing.

So finally, after an hour, the boat came back and picked me up. I survived and I complained, but they were just looking at me, not really understanding what my point was. So there was no point in starting a fight. I thought I just wouldn't go snorkeling anymore, especially not with them.

What I did do with the same people, because they were kind of the only people I knew there, was go out back on the boat when the divers went for a night dive. They allowed me to sit on the top of the boat on the roof and see the stars. Just like in Palau before, I saw a sky, a starry sky that you cannot imagine. I couldn't imagine, I cannot describe. There were so many stars, and you could see the Milky Way with your bare eyes—no photography, no Photoshop, no image editing. You could just see everything very clearly and very nicely. You could see the Milky Way. Very, very, very impressive. Never seen anything like that before or after.

Then in Yap, the next day, I did some sightseeing on land. I had enough of the waters, and that was super cool too. Two things I remember: the first was they have coins as a mode of payment from ancient times, and they're made out of stone. They kind of look like coins. It's called the stone money of Yap. I will put a link somewhere. But they are very heavy rocks, worth a lot. You can use one of them to buy a house, and they are so heavy that people keep them in their garden, I guess, because nobody can carry them away anyway without making a big fuss. And they are everywhere in Yap.

The second thing was the village eldest wanted to talk to me. So I went to see this guy, who looked like a hundred years old, with very crumply skin, brown from the sun. He was wearing a banana leaf as a hat, a banana leaf as a necklace, and some dried banana leaves around his waist. Otherwise, I'm pretty sure he was pretty naked. He talked to me for a while and wanted me to take pictures with him, so I did that. Then he was asking me for money. He's like, "Okay, now that you got all your pictures and all that, how about you give me $20?" So I gave him $20, and I was a little less proud that the village elder wanted to see me because apparently it's just a tourist attraction you pay for. But anyway, it was a good experience, and I got very nice pictures. I'll see if I can put some of those up on the website. Yeah, I took a lot of beautiful pictures.

We went to this—well, I don't want to say museum; it was more like a hut. There was this old World War II airplane because, just like Hawaii, it was a base. I think so was Guam back then. Actually, I'm not 100% sure. But either way, this part of the Pacific Ocean was where the Japanese and the Americans fought. That's why around these areas, you can see shipwrecks and plane wrecks in the water or, in that case, in that kind of museum, that are still back from wartime.

The guide I had on Yap was phenomenal, by the way. He had the trashiest car I've ever seen in my life. I don't know if he was living in there or if he was partying in there. It smelled interesting, to say the least. In the back, there were empty cans, and by that, I don't mean like 5 or 10 or 20. There were very literally hundreds of empty beer cans he was collecting on the back seat and behind the front seats. Every time we hit a bump, which there are a lot of on this island, it made a fun little noise—the noise that 100 empty cans make. Anyway, Yap was amazing too. Somehow, even though it's another Pacific remote island, it was very different from Palau, but very, very interesting on its own. I enjoyed being there tremendously.

Even though it was very, very expensive, I paid 509 US dollars for two nights plus a late checkout. I wasn't staying at a five-star hostel or five-star hotel. Honestly, now looking at it, I think this is the most remote island I've ever been to, and I had a great time. I was there for three days. It turns out 500 US dollars seems totally fine. But back then, especially after Southeast Asia and $20 hostels that are really nice, this felt like a ton of money. I know back then it kind of ruined my day a little bit because they also had very weird ways of calculating tax and everything. So it was twice as much as I anticipated. But be that as it may, I had an absolutely great time, aside from the money issues, both on Palau and Yap. And now I'm thinking I kind of want to do that again.

After Yap, I was flying to Guam. But looking at the time, that might be a story for next week. And now let me give you a very short paragraph of Tom Sawyer like every week.