Mangrove Trip

Last Thursday I took a break from unpacking and organized a trip to the mangroves in Brunei. Antje and I left Kuala Belait at about 8:30 AM to drive the 1-1/2 hours to Bandar to meet our Bruneian guide, Shavez for a boat trip through the mangroves at 10AM. It was a bit of a challenge meeting up with him, as he did not give me an exact location. We waited by the bay for the boatman that he hired for the 3-hour trip. Shavez is a student doing research in this area, and because he is a poor student he does these tour to earn money. No tour companies go there. The boat ride is to the second largest island of Brunei. But I don't remember its name. It is evident that it has been mostly undiscovered. There is lots of wildlife that live only in that part of Brunei, but it was difficult to see a lot of it because of the motor noise. When the animals hear the boat motor, they run. We did see some of the Proboscis monkeys, but not very close up. There were lots of mud skippers. Shavez told us that there is another student that is doing a report on them soon. He told us how we could sign up for an environmental group, which would let us go and listen to some of the reports done by university students. Here are some of the photos I took. I am still waiting for Shavez to send me some photos that he took. First photo is the children's school, and the boat is the bus that the children ride to school. After those is the oldest petrol station in Brunei!

Here is a better video of the water village. http://youtu.be/hyylFGGGt0c