The difficult part for me was clambering into the shallow boat (kind of proa shape), no life jackets (!) and off we zoomed with a young Bruneian making the boat speed as fast as possible across the river...
But soon at the other side, Jeti 2, and out welcoming hostess awaiting us to give me a hand off the boat.
Her name is Kem and she is related to the Bruneian royal family, though there's also quite a bit of Chinese mixed in (but she informed us that one of the sultans was Chinese...)
Her house is a traditional simple wooden single-storey building, standing on stilts in the water. It's supplied with electricity and has wifi (very useful) but all fluids/liquids from the house drain straight into the water below... The next morning the tide is out and we see the mud bottom of the river, littered with the cast-offs of years...
The night was very noisy; the small motor launches zoom past at all hours. There's an electricity generator booming nearby. We also experience the most stupendous thunderstorm ever: a truly deafening crash right above us, immediately followed by a huge flash accompanied by the smell of burning. The children were unperturbed. I grabbed Judy's arm!
But it was unforgettable: watching darkness fall across the water, with the dome of the Golden Mosque in the distance and the screeching call of night birds. And dawn the next morning, with the tide run out and small birds and the occasional cat moving across the mud flats which reminded me of a Dali painting: weird stumpy wooden shapes sticking up from the dark grey sludge...
Tried here to attach a pic, but didn't succeed. Ah well, anther day...
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