Brunei

Brunei sits in two pieces on the north coast of Borneo, split by a strip of Malaysian Sarawak. The western part holds the oil towns; the eastern district, Temburong, is almost all rainforest, where a canopy walkway in the Ulu Temburong National Park climbs above the trees. Proboscis monkeys feed in the mangroves of Brunei Bay, and on the Brunei River, Kampong Ayer, a village of stilt houses joined by walkways, has stood over the water for centuries.

Chinese chroniclers of the tenth century described a trading kingdom here called Po-ni. Its rulers became Muslim, and by the sixteenth century the sultanate’s reach ran along Borneo’s coast into the southern Philippines. In 1521 Antonio Pigafetta, sailing with the survivors of Magellan’s voyage, described a city built over water and royal elephants. The sultanate later lost most of its lands to the Brooke rajahs of Sarawak and to British traders, and accepted British protection in 1888. Oil was struck at Seria in 1929, and Brunei became fully independent in January 1984.

Islam shapes daily life, and gold-domed mosques rise above the riverside quarters. Ambuyat, a sticky paste of sago starch, is twirled on bamboo forks called chandas and dipped in a sour fruit sauce, and gulintangan gong ensembles play at weddings. Oil and gas have long paid the state’s bills. Gas has been liquefied at Lumut since 1972 and shipped to Japan, and a monument at Seria marks the field’s billionth barrel.