ASIANOVERLAND.NET SYDNEY TO LONDON DAY 46: LABUAN TO BANDAR SERI BERGAHWAN, BRUNEI, BORNEO

The whole world changed when the Magellan Expedition’s first circumnavigation of the world landed in Borneo/Brunei in 1521. Until that time, the spices grown in the Spice Islands were mostly taken overland along all or part of the Old Silk Road, which could just as easily have been called the Old Spice Road. The Europeans exchanged gold for spices, and had long been seeking to avoid the Asian and Muslim traders along the Silk Road, who profited at the expense of the Europeans.

Before the Magellan Expedition reached Brunei, Ferdinand Magellan himself had died in The Phillipines, after successfully converting 2,200 locals to Christianity  in Cebu. Magellan was killed on 27 April 1521, when he tried to convert a few hundred more to Christianity on the island of Mactan.

Antonio Pigafetta served as Magellan's assistant and kept an accurate journal of the expedition, before and after Magellan’s death, including the following description of Brunei’s water village, Kampong Ayer:

“The city is built in the sea, the King’s palace and the houses of the principal persons excepted. It contains twenty-five thousand hearths or families. The houses are built of wood upon large piles, to keep them from the water. When the tide rises, the women, who are chief venders of necessaries, traverse the town in boats. In front of the King’s palace is a large wall, built with bricks of great size, with embrazures, or rather port-holes, as in a fortress; and on the wall are mounted fifty-six bombards of brass, and fix of iron: in course of two days we passed in the city, they made several discharges from these guns.”

Pigafetta described the Sultan of Brunei, Sultan Bolkiah:

“The King, who is a Mahometan, is called Rajah Siripada. He is very corpulent and may be about forty years of age. He is waited upon by women alone, the daughters of the chief inhabitants of the island. No one is allowed to address him otherwise than in the manner I have described, through a sarbacane. He has ten secretaries constantly employed on different matters of state, who write on a very thin epidermis of certain trees which is called chiritoles. He never leaves his palace upon any occasion other than to hunt.”

Pigafetta was one of the 18 men who made the complete circumnavigation, returning to Spain in 1522 under the command of Juan Sebastián Elcano, out of the approximately 240 who set sail three years earlier. These men completed the first circumnavigation of the world. Others mutinied and returned in the first year. Pigafetta's journal is the source for much of what is known about Magellan and Elcano's voyage, including life in Brunei before European colonisation.

Around AD 1400, Brunei was founded by Awang Alak Betatar, later to be Sultan Muhammad Shah,  who discovered the Brunei River estuary and founded a water village there. According to legend, upon landing, he exclaimed, Baru nah ("that's it!" or "there"), from which the name "Barunai" or "Brunei" was derived. He was the first Muslim ruler of Brunei. 

Bolkiah was the 5th Sultan of Brunei. He ascended the throne upon the abdication of his father, Sultan Sulaiman, and ruled Brunei from 1485 to 1528. His reign marked the Golden Age of Brunei, and saw the Sultanate become the superpower of the Malay archipelago. Bolkiah frequently travelled overseas to gain new ideas for the development of the country, as well as seeking suggestions from his various chiefs.

At the peak of the Bruneian Empire, Sultan Bolkiah controlled most regions of Borneo, including modern-day Sarawak and Sabah, as well as the Sulu Archipelago. The state of Brunei fought against Spain in the 1578 Castilian War, and slowly declined as European colonisers, the Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, German and British, all established colonies in the Spice Islands so they could import the spices directly into Europe instead of travelling overland.

The ceremonial stone boat sitting in the lagoon of Omar Ali Saifuddien Mosque is a replica of a 16th-century mahligai (royal barge) which was reported by Pigafetta to have been made of gold and precious gemstones. 

Brunei’s water village, Kampong Ayer, is much the same today as it was described by Pigafetta 500 years ago.

Brunei is full of unique Borneo wildlife, monkeys, orangutan and parks, one of the best being Temburong National Park.

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