Taiwan, Malaysia, Singapore ...: under the rule of His Majesty the Sultan

Since I have first heared in Highschool of Brunei, the small Sultanate located in the South China Sea on the Malaysian part of Borneo, I was somehow fascinated.
I cannot really explain why ... maybe because many people don't even know about Brunei's existence, maybe a liked the sound of its name (in full it is actually Brunei Darussalam). And I remembered its capital Bandar Seri Begawan because it is the only major city I know, whose name consists of three words.

However, I never really thought that someday I would have the chance to go there.
But thanks to AirAisa I got an almost no-cost flight from Kuala Lumpur to Bandar Seri Begawan and so I happened to spend a couple of days in the world's longest-lasting hereditary monarchy.
The first Sultan of Brunei ruled in the 14th century and the same family has been in power ever since. Although it was for some time a British protectorate, Brunei never completely lost its independence. And with the discovery of vast amounts of oil at the beginning of the 20th century the royal treasury department became suddenly very busy. The black gold made the Sultan over night to the richest man in the world (before Bill Gates took over a few decades later).

Bandar Seri Begawan is quite a small city (about 50.000 inhabitans) and unlike Dubai the Sultan's wealth can only be seen in some of the official buildings, like the Royal Regalia Museum, the Sultan Omar Ali Saifuddin Mosque and, of course, the Sultan's palace which is bigger than the Vatican palace and not open to public.
Besides that there are some monuments marking different birthdays of His Majesty as well as the impressive Empire Hotel which cost estimated 1.1 billion USD and a huge amusement park that was built by the Sultan's brother (who happened to be finance minister at that time) and who has given it to himself as a birthday present.

The common people enjoy some benefits such as no taxes, free health care and subsidies if someone wants to buy a car. But for many foreign workers coming from Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Vietnam, etc. the standard of living is not much higher than in neighboring Malaysia.

Unfortunately, the Sultan was preoccupied during my stay and had no time to meet me ... I guess he was busy either with some issues concerning falling oil prices or his two wives gave him trouble ...
so I had to look around the city on my own.