I rock up the Malaysian Border and they just stamp me out barely giving me any notice and then I rock up the Brunei Immigration which was also a few second checks before a stamp in was approved for 30 days.
Border Crossing - Malaysia to Brunei - Sungai Tujuh Immigration |
Next was customs and ride up to the booth, took out the printed 2D barcode and scan it and I was good to go. Easy ... too easy that I worry I missed some important step. Felt so unreal that it was too easy.
One custom officer saw my bike and with a smile asked me to move forward and park to the side. I thought yea ok, this will be the customs checks and I had some tobacco with me as well so I wanted to declare and be upfront first abiding with all their rules. He asked some standard questions like what I was carrying and I was more than eager to show him my camping gear stash in the box while he left my bag untouched.
Crossed in to Brunei - Waiting for Rain to Stop |
Ciggarattes is a no no .... pay tax ... but for the ammount i was carrying, he said sure its ok.
Then he saw the flag I stuck on Bluey, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos. A big smile on his face and we started chatting as he was also an adventure biker who has ride all the way up to Guangzhou China.
I ended up chatting with him for nearly an hour exhanging stories on customs clearence, budgets, tackling bribes with local police while on the journey etc. Etc and then the rain came ... so I had to wait another hour and we talk more with the custom officer excusing himself from time to time to see to work but as it was a quiet border and not much people were crossing on a tuesday morning, it was a barrage of adventure stories exchanged.
At one point I even forgot that I was talking to a customs officer and we were exchanging stories of all the hassle to get the bikes into other countries for touring including backdoors connections, bribing, getting a carnet without putting down the heavy deposit, some side money after settling all the customs paperwork and the things we do slightly illegally just to be touring in another country legally.
It was a great start to Brunei, and somehow I know that this will be a very friendly and happy country.