Frog Herding and jogging Ghurkas

Well we're still leaching the internet off the neighbours while we work out how to get to the main provider's offices during Ramadan hours. So communication is generally pot luck.

I've just spent the last few minutes eyeballing a pretty surly monkey that is sitting about 10 meters from our front door who looks pretty pissed off the garbage man collected our rubbish before he could get to it. There were three Durians in there that let off an almighty pong. Tony has discovered a love of the Durian that has seen him banished to the front porch and the benighted fruit hung up on the clothes line. He couldn't eat them all though (brought a bunch of them off a roadside vendor) and had to dispose of the wretched things before the monkeys and the wild boar got a bit too affectionate with my washing.

Its been a pretty eventful week. We've purchased a car - a spanking new Toyota Vios in a delightful shade of silver and have done some exploring of our nation's capital which revolved around chomping down on a whole lot of dim sum and getting fat and wandering around the only large mall in Bandar which had a delightful lack of chain stores.

One of the most bewildering things we've come across so far here is the 'ramadan lunch special' hmm. go figure. Because all the Chinese Bruneians don't fast all of the eating establishments seem to stay open all day and because there is nothing like people fasting to make you hungry I think I've put on a ton of weight the last week alone.

We're been exploring the local food markets and have discovered the joy of 1 dollar nasi goreng, fresh cane sugar juice and 2 dollar satay. Life is good:)

At the moment we get up every morning and happily munch down on breakfast while watching the guys from the 2000 strong Ghurka batalion in the housing next door do their morning run. These guys seriously have legs like ham-hocks... I wouldn't mess with them for fear they'd get you in a thigh grip and squeeze the life out of you.

Every night a large group of frogs converges on our driveway and refuses to move unless you physically get out of the car and herd them out of the way. I have no idea what they do out there other than just stare at each other maybe they are telepathic and we've just not noticed.

Well so far Ramadan here has been an absolute breeze... everyone's in a pretty good mood, the driving's not got too much of a psychotic edge to it and the rain washes everything clean every night...

Tony's so relaxed I'm worried I'll wake up one morning to find that he's just become a blobby puddle on the floor. I'm still missing Bahrain and Saudi (believe it or not) but am starting to relax quite nicely... you can't not with the lifestyle here.

Thats MY Chicken!

So I've just had a run in with the local wild life. Put out the bin and the little buggers worked out how to get the lid off (screw top) and take off with the remains of last nights roasted bird. I spent the last ten minutes chasing a hoard of the little buggers back to the Jungle and picking up half chewed aluminium foil... and then chasing them off again when they decided to make another attempt... It appears that they favour roasted garlic leftovers...

The Indian lady down the street spent quite some time looking at me with a bemused expression...I should have thrown a monkey at her

I think the neighbours have yet to click I'm leaching their net this morning... this could be a good day.

Arriving

Well after months of build up we have finally arrived here in Brunei after an insanely hectic week getting things sorted in Bahrain.

To our complete lack of amusement once we got to Dubai the check in desk for Brunei Air wasn't sure if they could let us on the plane with a one way ticket (as we looked like dodgy refugees waiting to claim asylum in some jungle with the monkeys) and we had to smile politely for quite some time at an enterprising check in guy named Ulysses while he flapped around trying to work out how to let the manic people through without potentially endangering his job. Once he worked that out (make it the cabin crews' problem just before we boarded the plane) he shooed us away and we toodled off into the future which contained soggy sandwiches and salmonella salad in the Business Lounge in Dubai. Oh, having only travelled business class twice I'd have to say if you're just doing it for the lounges, Dubai's aren't worth it between the fifty or so screaming Saudi kids and the dilapidated seating arrangements.

So zooming forward a pleasant flight and some satisfactory sleep (mine, not Tony's who stayed up to watch the Star Trek Movie while I got my vin diesel fix ... Fast and the Furious 4 before snoozing) we landed in what seemed to be a pretty endless sea of green and then turned out to be just that.

It turns out we live about an hour an a half from the nations capital 'Bandar' down a pretty good highway in a wee community called Panaga which is between Seria and Kuala Belait (Which I'm assuming means 'belated realisation there are no koalas in the vicinity).

First impressions after a few days of looking bleary and jet lagged is that this place is pretty fantastic. The Islam side of things is completely chilled out, people are smiling even when they're shirty instead of yodelling their asses off at you and it smells great.

We've already had two major thunderstorms and downpours and it sounds like the weather was waiting for us as if to say 'hey you've not seen rain for a while... well I'll put on a goddamn spectacular complete with massive puddles and fireworks...how'd you like them apples (or dragon fruit as the case may be)'

SO we arrived to find out that there is a massive waiting list for houses which is leaving a huge number of people (20-30 families)... mainly with many children... stranded in hotel rooms for up to three months waiting for 'available' houses. Luckily I found this out from the Meet And Greet lady Jayne before they told Tony this and gave him the word up not to be so nice when they asked if he liked out hotel room. As a result, he was ready for the news when it came from HR and did some delicate diplomacy with some pointed bellowing where appropriate. We're moving into our house on Saturday. I saw it yesterday and we will be living with a troop of very surly looking monkeys just out the front.

One of them looked like it was just itching to throw some poo in our general direction... I think I shall call him Ulysses.

This morning I'm off to check out the local Toyota dealership for some overpriced little matchbox car that zoom and that we'll probably lose in the next big flood that the expats here seemed to relish telling Tony about. Will post again once the jet lag goes and I stop having nightmares about monkeys.