Jerudong Park

Today we largely relaxed and enjoyed the facilities of the hotel.  In the evening, we went to Jerudong Park.  This is an amusement park built by the Sultan in 1994 as a birthday for his subjects on his fiftieth birthday.

Admission is free of charge.  Not only that, the Sultan invited Michael Jackson to give a free concert to his subjects in 1996, drawing a crowd of 60000 (that’s a sizeable proportion of the country’s population).

With a small population and not many tourists, the park wasn’t well patronised. There’s only so many times you’d want to visit if you’re a local. But as a visitor, we didn’t mind coming again despite visiting only four years ago in 2001.

As we went on some of the rides, I was concerned about maintenance and safety, bearing in mind the lack of revenue.  [Edit:  I later worked with a British colleague who worked in Brunei to wind up some of the country’s assets and he said that they never skimped on safety here.]

We finished the evening at the musical fountain which played a variety of popular Malay songs that were familiar to me from my childhood.