{"id":3642,"date":"2012-06-03T13:01:59","date_gmt":"2012-06-03T11:01:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.worldbiking.info\/wordpress\/?p=3642"},"modified":"2019-12-29T15:34:43","modified_gmt":"2019-12-29T20:34:43","slug":"bicycle-touring-brunei","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.worldbiking.info\/wordpress\/2012\/06\/bicycle-touring-brunei\/","title":{"rendered":"Stumbling on Adventure"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cLet us know if you make it.\u201d<\/p>\n

I shot Chad, our latest couchsurfing host, a confused look.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat do you mean, IF we make it?\u201d<\/p>\n

Turns out Eric had been conspiring to bring a little excitement to our Borneo tour.\u00a0 After 1,500 kilometers of biking across Borneo (a place I\u2019d previously equated with exoticism and adventure),\u00a0 the thought of spending another day cycling past palm oil plantations and oil refineries left me about as enthused as passing, say,\u00a0 8 hours chained to a desk in a cramped cubicle doing data entry.<\/p>\n

Bicycle touring on Borneo was downright tedious.\u00a0 And, outside of an hour or two around sunrise and sunset, unpleasant.\u00a0 The blazing equatorial sun, the steep climbs and the rarity of even a small patch of shade meant our bodies glistened with sweat most of the day.<\/p>\n

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Air-con Addict<\/h3>\n

After a day spent cycling through Borneo, I can think of few things more pleasurable than stationing myself in front of an air conditioner and letting the rejuvenating effects of cold air do their magic. Thank goodness for couchsurfers.\u00a0 Without their hospitality, it would be night after night in the stifling tent (we love our Big Agnes, but, let\u2019s face it, no tent can provide comfort in 90% humidity).<\/p>\n

Chad is an amiable Canadian on a two-year contract teaching at a government school in Brunei.\u00a0 There are loads of foreigners in Brunei.\u00a0 The best paid are Shell workers.\u00a0 An entry-level engineer can expect to take home $8,000 a month\u2014tax-free, with comfortable housing and top-notch health-care included in the package.\u00a0 Foreign teachers in Brunei can expect to sock away $40,000 in savings a year, all the while living comfortably.<\/p>\n

Of course, employers in Brunei have got to offer massive salaries.\u00a0\u00a0 Otherwise who would come to a dry country with a crappy climate where there\u2019s little to do but stroll around shopping malls?\u00a0 The high salaries and relatively easy life offered in the Sultanate of Brunei lull many foreigners in to a kind of complacency.\u00a0 They come for two years, \u201cjust to save a little money and get ahead back home\u201d and 15 years later they\u2019re still stuck in this oil-rich land.<\/p>\n

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Brunei Backroads<\/h3>\n

So Chad, and his friend Kevin\u2014an 8 year Brunei veteran\u2014had outlined a trail through the jungle for our ride to Bandar, the country\u2019s backwater of a capital.\u00a0 We begin our day on the busy coastal road.\u00a0 Most of this tiny country\u2019s population (just 400,000) makes their home on the relatively flat expanse that fronts \u00a0the South China Sea.\u00a0 We swing a right onto a side ride, a left onto an even narrower road then another right, and what do you know?\u00a0 We\u2019re out in the countryside—something I\u2019d come to actually question the existence of a few days back.<\/p>\n

I spot a group of men toiling in the fields.\u00a0 Unlike us (sporting bare arms and legs), these workers are covered from head to toe in an effort to fight off the effects of the unforgiving sun.\u00a0 They are Indonesians, I guess, since citizens of Brunei (a country with an annual per capita GDP of around $50,000) are disinclined towards such disagreeable duties.\u00a0 Further on, we come across a pair of water buffalo wallowing in a cool pit of mud.\u00a0 In the countryside, there are simple wooden homes built on stilts rather than the palatial mansions we come across in urban areas.\u00a0 There are children skipping about, mangy dogs chasing scruffy cats and old people with weathered skin staring blankly out of open windows.\u00a0\u00a0 The entire population is not holed up inside (or barricaded behind the tinted glass of their Mercedes) under the enticing spell of air-con.<\/p>\n

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Where you\u2019d least suspect<\/h3>\n

The \u201ctrail\u201d through the jungle is actually a road (which is odd, since we\u2019re used to locals claiming there are roads which turn out to be merely trails or tracks).\u00a0 Unpaved in parts, dusty and dirty, steep and hilly but so much more fun than the coastal thoroughfare.\u00a0 We pass not a single palm oil plantation nor big rig from Shell.<\/p>\n

There is<\/em> adventure to be had on the island of Borneo.\u00a0\u00a0 And to think we found it, of all places, in the Sultanate of Brunei.<\/p>\n

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