Bandar Seri Begawan

Brunei's history as a trading sultanate stretches back centuries before the modern capital took shape. At its height, probably in the 15th and 16th centuries, the Sultanate of Brunei controlled much of the coast of Borneo and parts of the Philippines, and Kampong Ayer — the stilt settlement on the Brunei River that is still inhabited today — was already a substantial town, described by early European visitors as a city built entirely on the water, its scale startling enough that some accounts compare it to Venice.

That power receded over the following centuries as European colonial expansion reshaped Borneo: territory was ceded to the neighbouring Brooke family's Sarawak and to British North Borneo, and by the late 19th century Brunei's land area had shrunk dramatically. In 1888 the sultanate became a British protectorate, a status that gave it external defence and foreign-policy oversight from London while leaving internal and religious affairs to the Sultan — an arrangement that shaped Brunei's later, distinctive path to full independence.

Everything changed with oil. Commercial quantities were discovered at Seria, west of the capital, in 1929, and over the following decades petroleum revenue transformed a small protectorate into one of the wealthiest states in Southeast Asia per capita. Brunei used that wealth deliberately: no income tax, heavily subsidised healthcare and education for citizens, and a state apparatus and set of public buildings — including the capital's two great mosques — built on a scale that reflects the oil wealth behind them.

Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah ascended the throne in 1967 and has now reigned for more than half a century, making him one of the longest-serving current monarchs in the world. Brunei negotiated full independence from the United Kingdom on 1 January 1984, later than most former British territories in the region — a deliberate choice by the ruling family to manage the transition on its own terms rather than under external pressure.

Brunei remains one of the world's few absolute monarchies, governed under the philosophy of Melayu Islam Beraja (Malay Islamic Monarchy), which combines Malay culture, Islamic religious practice and royal authority as the three pillars of the state. Between 2014 and 2019 the country phased in a Sharia Penal Code alongside its existing legal system — a significant and, internationally, controversial development that visitors should understand shapes conduct expectations (alcohol, dress, public behaviour) far more than it shapes anything a typical short visit will encounter directly.

Kampong Ayer is not a recreation of old Brunei — it is old Brunei, still functioning. Tens of thousands of people once lived across its network of stilt houses connected by wooden boardwalks; the population has declined as some residents moved to housing on dry land, but a substantial community remains, with its own mosques, schools, clinics, police post and fire station, all built out over the river on stilts.

For a visitor, the settlement is reached only by boat — a short, quick crossing from jetties near the town centre or the Yayasan Complex — and a water-taxi ride through its channels is, more than any single monument, the experience that defines a trip to the capital. The boats themselves, small and fast, are part of the draw.

The settlement's continued existence is itself a deliberate policy choice, not an accident of poverty: the government has invested in modernising Kampong Ayer's infrastructure — piped water, electricity, waste systems — specifically to keep the community viable on the water rather than relocating it entirely to land, treating it as living heritage rather than an informal settlement to be cleared.

Early European accounts of Brunei, including from the era of Magellan's expedition in the 1520s, describe a city on the water substantial enough to draw comparisons to Venice — a comparison Brunei's own tourism material still sometimes uses. Visiting today, it is worth remembering that the comparison is centuries old, not a modern marketing invention.

The Omar Ali Saifuddien Mosque, completed in 1958, is named after the 28th Sultan and sits beside its own artificial lagoon in the town centre, its dome plated in gold and its minaret one of the tallest structures in the capital when it was built. A ceremonial stone royal barge, a replica of a 16th-century vessel, floats in the lagoon beside it — used historically for Quran-reading competitions and state ceremonies.

The Jame'Asr Hassanil Bolkiah Mosque, completed in 1992 near Kiarong, close to Gadong, is larger still: 29 golden domes, one for each Sultan in the line up to and including the incumbent, built specifically to mark Sultan Hassanal Bolkiah's 25th year on the throne. Where the older mosque reads as a serene, contained monument, the newer one is built at a scale meant to be seen from a distance across the city.

Both mosques admit non-Muslim visitors outside prayer times, on set visiting windows that shift around Friday prayers and religious holidays; both expect the same modest dress — shoulders and knees covered, women with their hair covered, shoes off at the door — with robes and headscarves usually available on loan for visitors who arrive without.

Seeing both in one trip is a useful way to read Brunei's more recent history: one mosque from the final years of the British protectorate era, the other from deep into the oil-wealth decades of a fully independent, absolute monarchy — separated by 34 years and a great deal of national income.

Bruneian food shares a great deal with neighbouring Malay Borneo, but a handful of dishes are treated as distinctly Bruneian. Ambuyat, a glutinous paste made from the starch of the sago palm, is the most symbolically important: traditionally eaten by winding it onto a special bamboo fork-like tool called a chandas and dipping it into a sour or savoury sauce, it is a dish tied closely to Bruneian identity even though it is eaten less often at home today than it once was.

Nasi katok — rice, a piece of fried chicken and sambal, wrapped simply in paper — is the everyday counterpart: a cheap, fast, filling meal sold from small stalls and shopfronts across the city, and often the first dish a visitor is pointed towards. Its name is said to come from the practice of 'knocking' (katok) on a seller's door or window at night to buy a packet after regular hours, in the days before shops kept late hours as a matter of course.

Because Brunei is a Sharia-law country with a Muslim-majority population, all food sold publicly is halal by default, and alcohol is entirely absent from restaurant, bar and market culture — unusual by regional standards and a genuine departure from neighbouring Malaysia or, especially, Singapore. Evenings in Bandar Seri Begawan are built around the Gadong night market, tea and coffee culture, and family time, rather than a bar scene.

Ramadan reshapes the city's food landscape sharply for a month each year: daytime food-stall trade largely stops, replaced after sunset by Ramadan bazaars selling an especially wide range of dishes for the breaking of the fast — for a visitor happening to travel during Ramadan, the evening food scene is, if anything, richer than usual, provided daytime expectations are adjusted accordingly.

The Sultan's Birthday on 15 July is the single biggest date on Bandar Seri Begawan's calendar: weeks of surrounding celebrations lead up to a public holiday marked by fireworks, a parade and events concentrated around the waterfront and the national stadium. Hotels fill up in the capital around this date, and it is worth booking well ahead if a trip coincides with it.

Hari Raya Aidilfitri, marking the end of Ramadan, brings the only days of the year the Sultan's palace — Istana Nurul Iman, one of the largest residential palaces in the world by floor area — opens its gates to the public. Very long queues form for the chance to walk through the state rooms and, often, to shake hands with members of the royal family; it is a genuinely unusual access point into a monarchy that is otherwise almost entirely closed to public view.

National Day on 23 February marks Brunei's full independence, celebrated with parades and fireworks concentrated around the waterfront, distinct from the Sultan's Birthday in July but similar in civic tone: flags, uniforms and a strong sense of state occasion rather than the informal street-party feel of some regional national days.

Day to day, city life in the capital runs at a notably unhurried pace by regional standards. Friday's congregational prayer, roughly 11:30 to 14:00, is a genuine pause in the working week — many offices, some shops and a number of museums close or shorten hours around it — and the absence of any bar or club scene means evenings are organised around food, family and, for many residents, mosque attendance rather than nightlife.