Theme Week Brunei – Bandar Seri Begawan

29 May 2021 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General Reading Time:  11 minutes

Omar Ali Saifuddin Mosque © Daniel Weiss/cc-by-sa-3.0

Omar Ali Saifuddin Mosque © Daniel Weiss/cc-by-sa-3.0

Bandar Seri Begawan (formerly known as Brunei Town) is the capital and largest city of Brunei. It is officially governed as a municipality (Malay: bandaran). Bandar Seri Begawan has an estimated population of 100,700, and including the whole Brunei-Muara District, the metro area has an estimated population of 279,924, over half the population of the country.   read more…

Theme Week Brunei – Ulu Temburong National Park

28 May 2021 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Palaces, Castles, Manors, Parks Reading Time:  5 minutes

Visitor registration © Bruneimaju/cc-by-sa-3.0

Visitor registration © Bruneimaju/cc-by-sa-3.0

Ulu Temburong National Park is the first national park to be established in Brunei, protected since 1991. The park is in Temburong District in eastern Brunei, and covers about 40% of the district in the south at 550 square kilometres (210 sq mi). It is within the Batu Apoi Forest Reserve. The park contains unspoiled jungle and is known as the “Green Jewel of Brunei”, described as “the finest example of the sultanate’s successful forest protection policy”. The principal rivers are the Temburong and Belalong Rivers. It is an important ecotourism centre in Brunei and hosts the Ulu Ulu Resort. The Peradayan Forest Reserve is also located in the district.   read more…

Theme Week Brunei – Kuala Belait

27 May 2021 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General Reading Time:  8 minutes

© flickr.com - IQRemix/cc-by-sa-2.0

© flickr.com – IQRemix/cc-by-sa-2.0

Kuala Belait, officially known in Malay as Pekan Kuala Belait (literally ‘Kuala Belait Town’), is a town located in the westernmost part of Brunei, in Belait District. It is the second largest settlement in the country after Bandar Seri Begawan, the capital of Brunei, and functions as the capital for the district. Kuala Belait is officially a municipality (Malay: bandaran), as well as a village-level subdivision under the mukim or subdistrict of the same name. Kuala Belait literally means “the mouth of the Belait River” in the Malay language. Its name comes from kuala meaning either confluence of two rivers or the mouth of a river, and Belait, the name of the river and district. It is also known locally as “Belait”. When needed to distinguish it from the district of the same name, it is known locally as “KB town” in English or “Pekan Belait” in Malay.   read more…

Theme Week Brunei – Muara

26 May 2021 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General Reading Time:  7 minutes

Muara Port © Balou46/cc-by-sa-3.0

Muara Port © Balou46/cc-by-sa-3.0

Muara is a town in the north-easternmost part of Brunei-Muara District, Brunei. It is officially known in Malay as Pekan Muara (literally ‘Muara Town’) but is administered as a village-level subdivision under the mukim or subdistrict of Serasa. Muara has no municipal body. It is home to Muara Port, the main and only deep-water port of the country. The postcode for Muara is BT1128.   read more…

Theme Week Brunei – Brunei Bay

25 May 2021 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General Reading Time:  3 minutes

Panorama of Bandar Seri Begawan, 2018 © Zulfadli51/cc-by-sa-4.0

Panorama of Bandar Seri Begawan, 2018 © Zulfadli51/cc-by-sa-4.0

Brunei Bay is on the northwestern coast of Borneo island, in Brunei and Malaysia. Brunei Bay is located east of Bandar Seri Begawan, Brunei.   read more…

Theme Week Brunei

24 May 2021 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Theme Weeks Reading Time:  12 minutes

Sultan Omar Ali Saifuddin Mosque © flickr.com - sam garza/cc-by-2.0

Sultan Omar Ali Saifuddin Mosque © flickr.com – sam garza/cc-by-2.0

Brunei, officially the Nation of Brunei, the Abode of Peace, is a country located on the north coast of the island of Borneo in Southeast Asia. Apart from its coastline with the South China Sea, the country is completely surrounded by the Malaysian state of Sarawak. It is separated into two parts by the Sarawak district of Limbang. Brunei is the only sovereign state completely on the island of Borneo; the remainder of the island’s territory is divided between the nations of Malaysia and Indonesia. Brunei’s population was 428,963 in 2018. The government is an absolute monarchy under the sovereign rule of Sultan and Yang di-Pertuan, which implements a combination of English common law and sharia law, as well as direct general Islamic practices. The population is at 460,000.   read more…

Pearl River Delta in China

12 March 2021 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General Reading Time:  5 minutes

Casinos in Macao © Diego Delso/cc-by-sa-3.0

Casinos in Macao © Diego Delso/cc-by-sa-3.0

The Pearl River Delta Metropolitan Region (PRD) is the low-lying area surrounding the Pearl River estuary, where the Pearl River flows into the South China Sea. It is one of the most densely urbanized regions in the world, and is often considered a megacity. It is now the wealthiest region in South China and one of the wealthiest in the whole of China along with the Yangtze River Delta in East China and Jingjinji in North China. The region’s economy is referred to as Pearl River Delta Economic Zone. It is also part of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macau Greater Bay Area.   read more…

Macao, Las Vegas of the East

18 December 2020 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, UNESCO World Heritage Reading Time:  19 minutes

Marina at Macau Fisherman's Wharf © Mfwmarketing/cc-by-sa-4.0

Marina at Macau Fisherman’s Wharf © Mfwmarketing/cc-by-sa-4.0

Macau, also spelled Macao and officially the Macao Special Administrative Region of the People’s Republic of China, is a city and special administrative region of the People’s Republic of China in the western Pearl River Delta by the South China Sea. With a population of about 650,000 and an area of 32.9 km² (12.7 sq mi), it is the most densely populated region in the world. Macau is a former colony of the Portuguese Empire, after Ming China leased the territory as a trading post in 1557. Portugal paid an annual rent and administered the territory under Chinese sovereignty until 1887, when it gained perpetual colonial rights in the Sino-Portuguese Treaty of Peking. The colony remained under Portuguese rule until 1999, when it was transferred to China. Macau is a special administrative region of China, which maintains separate governing and economic systems from those of mainland China under the principle of “one country, two systems“. Originally a sparsely populated collection of coastal islands, the territory has become a major resort city and a top destination for gambling tourism, with a gambling industry seven times larger than that of Las Vegas. The territory is highly urbanised and most development is built on reclaimed land; two-thirds of the total land area is reclaimed from the sea.   read more…

Theme Week Vietnam – Vung Tau

27 March 2020 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General Reading Time:  11 minutes

© Hoangvantoanajc/cc-by-sa-3.0

© Hoangvantoanajc/cc-by-sa-3.0

Vũng Tàu is the largest city and former capital of Bà Rịa–Vũng Tàu Province in Vietnam. The city area is 140 square kilometres (54 square miles), consists of 13 urban wards and one commune of Long Son Islet. Vũng Tàu was the capital of the province until it was replaced by the much smaller Bà Rịa city on 2 May 2012. The city is also the crude oil extraction center of Vietnam.   read more…

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