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‘Life moves a lot faster around Kampong Ayer than it did in the old days. Just arriving in Asia’s largest stilted water-village can be an exhilarating experience. There are taxi-boats in cities all over South East Asia but even the ‘longtails’ of Bangkok would have trouble keeping up with the waterborne fighter pilots who parry and slice among the pillars of Brunei’s Kampong Ayer.

In a spear-shaped, high-speed launch – emblazoned with BMW and Ferrari decals – the ride across the bay takes only a minute or two. But as the snarl of the outboard motor recedes into the distance you realise that you have traded the hi-tech marble-and-glass of city-centre for a tranquil and timeless Waterworld of winding canals and snaking timber walkways. In the morning old men fish directly from their front porches and in the afternoon children gather on quaint humpback bridges to fly their kites.

The first westerners to visit Brunei were Magellan’s crew during their 1521 circumnavigation and Vincenzo Pigafetta, the expedition’s documenter, is generally accepted as a reliable chronicler…despite misquoting the name of the entire island and thus giving the word ‘Borneo’ to the world.

“The city is all built in salt water, except the king’s house, and the houses of certain chief men,” he wrote, “…it contains 25 thousand families. The houses are all of wood, placed on great piles to raise them high up.”

The palm-and-rattan shacks have long since been replaced by spacious air-conditioned apartments, with efficient piped water, gas and waste disposal systems – and the old sailor would probably notice the powerful motorboats moored under many of the verandas. Pastel-painted houses that were once decked only with bougainvillea and hibiscus, now also sprout the overgrown blossoms of satellite dishes. Kampong Ayer is still home to 30,000 people and, despite the changes brought about by the discovery of oil in 1928, Pigafetta would surely recognise what he called ‘The Venice of the East’ if he could see it today.

This is the largest stilted water-village in the world and its 28 separate wards combine to make an entire city, complete with schools, clinics, mosques, shops, petrol stations and markets. There are even waterborne police and fire services, and a jail (though in crime-fee Brunei there are rarely any inmates). There are elderly people who have not crossed to the mainland for years and there are cats that must think that they are indeed the castaway inhabitants of a Waterworld.

Kampong Ayer’s estimated twenty miles of boardwalks defy orientation for an outsider but the joy of the water village is simply to wander, aimless and wide-eyed. You might find yourself at a dead-end where the planks suddenly disintegrate several metres short of a disused jetty…or you might find yourself accidentally wandering into somebody’s backyard. Happy children wave at you from verandas and somebody will always direct you with a smile, or very often, invite you inside for refreshments.

The best time of year for this is during Hari Raya Aidilfitri (the celebration that follows the month of Ramadhan). This is when local households traditionally open their homes to guests and if you are politely dressed you will certainly be invited in to talk and share in delicious kueh mor biscuits or chocolate kek batik. Visitors are invariably stunned to see the opulence of the front rooms; several 3-piece suites and at least two perpetually blaring TVs is very common. Crystal-glass vases and hand-woven rugs are proudly displayed, and over-looking it all is the ever-present portrait of the sultan.

With free education and health care, generous pensions, interest-free loans for cars and houses (and even subsidised pilgrimages to Mecca) the Bruneian man-in-the-street enjoys one of the highest standards of living in SE Asia. But experts estimate that the ‘black gold’ that has made all this possible will be exhausted by 2020 and it is not yet clear where the sultan will turn to if he is to maintain the luxurious lifestyle to which his citizens have become accustomed. Beef, rice and forestry are possible options but while fresh beef is flown in daily from the national ranch in Australia’s Northern Territory (which is actually bigger than the sultanate itself) rice has to be imported from Thailand.

The exploitation of offshore oil and gas deposits has had an unexpected effect on Brunei’s onshore riches and the country still boasts more than 2,000 square miles of rainforest. Things are looking increasingly hopeful that these resources are going to be dedicated to eco-tourism, rather than the logging that has denuded much of neighbouring Sarawak and Kalimantan.

The name ‘Borneo’ has always had a ring of adventure to it and many travellers are recognising in Brunei an irresistibly easy entry point into the world’s third largest jungle island. A mere 45-minute boat ride across the bay from Bandar Seri Begawan, the capital, takes you to Temburong District, a jungle ‘playground’ equipped with canopy walkways, rafting facilities, a research centre and wildlife that is on the verge of extinction even in the darkest headwaters of other parts of the island. There are even Dayak longhouses here in differing degrees of antiquity; oil money has clearly not by-passed the ethnic minorities and the newest ‘longhouse’ looks more like a particularly neat row of suburban terraces!

While there are already a score of jungle reserves throughout the country and the developers look set to exploit the eco-tourism potential of the country, it is not yet sure what the future holds for Kampong Ayer. There is currently no accommodation for tourists on Kampong Ayer and only a couple of simple rumah makans offering fried rice or noodle soup. There is talk, however, of converting some buildings into chalets and turning terraces into open-air restaurants where tourists could spend a pleasant evening enjoying what is surely one of Asia’s unique communities.

By Brunei’s standards living conditions here are still considered low, and some sections of the administration refuse to see Kampong Ayer as anything but an eyesore in their vision of a bright-and-shiny future. A major problem is the fires that can occasionally sweep along the timber walkways, reducing houses to the waterline in a matter of minutes. Over the years whole neighbourhoods have been burnt down to charred stumps and the authorities have moved many homeless families to new housing estates. A few residents have volunteered to move to these modern (and relatively low maintenance) houses but, since many others are adamant that they prefer ‘life on the waves,’ the government has responded by building a new ward out of fireproof concrete on the far side of the bay.

“My family has lived here for generations,” Syed Bin Yousaf told me as we sat in his front room, surrounded by countless grandchildren. “Why would we want to move to darat?” – he used the Malay word for ‘land’ by which the ‘water-people’ know terra firma – “here we have our friends around us. On the land we would have to live among strangers. We are minutes from the city, yet we have no congestion here…and certainly no parking problems!”

There is a very real danger that Syed’s grandchildren will be condemned to what they see as a sterile life on darat…unless the ‘Venice of the East’ is allowed to claim its rightful place as one of the truly unique gems in what the Brunei tourism department is calling ‘A Kingdom of Unexpected Treasures.’

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