Travels: Day 16 - DVDs and Booze Cruises
I'm up before Olly and Anne and head downstairs to find Steve sweeping the floors - it's good to see he is prepared for marriage. I am so worn out still that I have a cup of instant coffee (my first for about 3 years) in an effort to wake myself up! We all have some breakfast and generally hang out while Wei heads off to do some more wedding stuff which seems to be taking up her every waking moment. Later Steve drives us into town where we meet up with Wei, Steve's brother Alan and his girlfriend Sabrina for a dim sum lunch all of which was awesome. Well, I say all - I didn't actually try the chicken feet, I just couldn't bring myself to try them.
After the grub we head out into the rain (!) and Steve leaves us in his local DVD shop. In Brunei, while they do have copyright laws they don't actually enforce them so we walk into what looks like a large car-boot sale. It's just row after row of hooky DVDs, games, software and music CDs - movies for 6BND (£2) and £4k software packages for a quid fifty. I can't quite bring myself to go spend crazy so I settle for six DVDs (all of which are high quality by the way).
Trying to find refuge from the heat and humidity we are delighted to find a Dome and we head in for a coffee and some much needed air-con. We get picked up by Steve's friend Daryl (a very nice chap) head to the church for the end of the rehersal. Once that's done it's back to Steve's to collect our passports because we are heading for Kuala Lurah in Malaysia. Now that sounds like we are globe-trotting but in fact we are driving about half an hour and only venturing 100 metres into the neighbouring country. Why? Booze.
As I have mentioned before Brunei is dry so in order to stock up on beer and spirits for the wedding Steve has been getting his friends to cross the border and come back with their 12 cans and 2 bottle allowance. Kuala Lurah is set up pretty much solely for Bruneians to go and have a few beers. It is a place with no running water and all the buildings are thrown together from plywood and corrugated iron. You go in, sit down and while you sink a few (at about 30p each) the guy takes your order and heads into the jungle, where his secret stash is, and gets the booze you want to take back. All the booze is kept in the jungle as this place is not really supposed to exist and every now and then it gets raided by the authorities. We felt like banditos! It was an altogether surreal experience crossing a national boundary to down a couple of cold Tigers and then getting your passport stamped and passing through customs on the way home.
Loaded up we head back to chill out with a cold beer and talk the night away.
“all of which are high quality by the way”
In what sense? Content or picture? Are any of them naughty?
July 31st, 2006 at 3:39 pmNone of them are naughty in the way you are thinking. By quality I mean that they are pretty much what you would expect if you had bought them full-price in this country.
August 1st, 2006 at 2:44 pm