I wonder how many pub quizzers out there could name this capital city? And how many people know anything about Brunei apart from its sultan being extremely wealthy? Wandering around this marble and gold encrusted ghost town is certainly a different experience to anywhere else in South East Asia. Even the small amount of traffic is slow and courteous, and cars actually stop at zebra crossings. Wow!

After wandering through the eerily quiet central shopping malls, I crossed the river via wooden planks into the "suburbs" to see where people live. This is Kampong Ayer - stretching 8km along the river, it is the largest water village in the world. People have lived here, literally above the river for over 1000 years, so it's quite extraordinary to think that it is here on these stilted boardwalks where not only the history of Brunei exists, but a big part of the history of South East Asia.

Unlike the surrounding countries, Brunei is very old. It was trading with the Chinese as early as 600AD, and by the 15th and 16th century was in charge of a powerful empire that governed the whole of Borneo and the Philippines. It was the arrival of the Europeans that ended Brunei's domination, and it slowly shrank as it gave away its empire in exchange for protection. It was never colonized as such, but entered a Treaty of Friendship with Britain that didn't end until 1984 when it finally regained its full independence.

All of that trading, power and history happened on the wooden streets of Kampong Ayer. The modern city, with its large mosques, expensive hotels, museums and of course the Sultan's palace are all a relatively recent addition. There are many white elephant buildings, as the sultan's nephew blew a few hundred billion dollars when he was in charge of public spending before he was sent to England and cut off with a "small" $500,000 per year allowance. But the two large mosques are not in this category. Outside, they are impressive enough, but unlike the plain interiors of many a mosque, the insides of these (particularly the prayer rooms) are stunningly beautiful.

The Royal Regalia Museum is a large modern building, which is mainly used for displaying the gifts that have been presented to the sultan over the last few decades. Now I'm not much of an art buff, but there was hardly a painting or artifact on display here that I didn't find extremely attractive. I guess that when it comes to choosing a gift for the man who has everything, you have to make it unique every time. So the combination of tradition, artwork and imagination makes for an exquisite collection. As with the inside of the mosques, my camera was confiscated before I went in, so you will have to imagine, but think gold, silver, hardwoods and expensive fabrics and you are on the right lines.

It's surprisingly cheap to eat and go shopping here, and with no alcohol in the country, these are the Bruneians favourite pastimes. The low costs are possibly due to the fact that there are no taxes of any description here, not even income tax, and tipping is unheard of. But every resident is entitled to free health care and a pension. This is what huge offshore oil reserves can do for you, and without them Brunei might have been swallowed up long ago.

This is probably the most conservative of all the Islamic countries that I have visited to date. It's clean, it's safe, and it's friendly. But another day here and I might actually be in danger of dying of boredom.