Time travel

I fear that I may have to slightly bend the rules of anonymity here, if only to give this post (and future ones) some amount of clarity beyond that achievable by avoiding names of geographical locations. As for people's names, I shall use pseudonyms where necessary to protect privacy. With that out of the way, I shall proceed with this post's intended subject.

A couple of weeks ago I went on a day trip with an old friend, C, to visit a mutual acquaintance of ours, W, who works some distance away in Kuala Belait. Being born and bred in Muara, I rarely have much reason to go visit KB 100 kilometers away from home, a good hour's drive. Such being the case, this is the first time I've been in KB... and what a trip it was. Kuala Belait is one of the two major towns (the other being Seria) in the District of Belait in Brunei. The town however harkens back to the days of my youth where a shopping district consists of goldsmiths, tailors, old style coffee houses and provision shops. There are signs of modern franchises invading the sleepy hallow; a Body Shop stands firm in a corner, a Royce chocolate store finds itself stuck in between an aging provision shop and a rapidly deteriorating KFC, an empty AV Electronics store (one of Brunei's few legitimate Apple vendors) and a BATA shoe store where an attractive sales lady sits awaiting customers, or so I'm told. Most of the town centre remains trapped in the 1990s era and it shows.

Meeting up, we went over to our W's accommodation, which turned out to be a rented room in a house. The house itself looked relatively normal, the walls a shade of creamy orange. Inside however you feel like you've entered a different era. I spotted a sewing machine, one that is powered by a pedal a not by electricity. The floors and walls in between rooms are wooden and let through an astounding amount of noise, as kindly demonstrated by W's slightly anti-social neighbour via loud music. Nevertheless we had a lovely catching up sessions of sorts in W's room, a mishmash of both old and new from creaking tables and a simple bed to a laptop and a small fridge.

Time passed and it was time for me and C to return home. As C drove us back I switched on my iPad and began typing out this post, reflecting back on the relatively amazing preservation of the past in town so very, very far away. Wouldn't want to live there myself though.

~Onery

Location:Kuala Belait, Brunei