As we were push­ing off from the gate on Royal Brunei Flight 822, the LCDs came down and a five minute long prayer for a safe jour­ney began.  Since 1991, the Sul­tan pro­nounced Brunei a strict Mus­lim state and with that dec­la­ra­tion made it a dry coun­try.  Not a drip of liquor flows out­side the sup­posed black mar­ket.  Luck­ily, we caught wind of this non­sense pre-flight and imported our own bub­bly post-haste to wel­come our 11th Anniver­sary in proper style.

We were in des­per­ate need of a respite and splurged on some top notch digs that is the Empire Hotel, the Sultan’s dis­cred­ited bro’s pet project (read: phal­lus).  Guess he’s got some­thing to prove.

[View Slideshow]