Bangar

Temburong has been settled far longer than its quiet appearance suggests. Malay and Kedayan families farmed and fished along the Temburong and Labu rivers, and Iban and Murut communities moved into the interior, living in longhouses and working the hills above the water. Rivers were the roads, and the district's produce — sago, fruit, rubber, timber and fish — travelled downstream to the capital by boat.

The district became separate from the rest of Brunei by accident of empire. In 1890 the Limbang valley, which lies between Temburong and the main body of the country, was annexed by Sarawak under the Brooke rajahs, cutting the sultanate in two; Brunei never accepted the loss, and the split remains. Bangar, on the river a short way inland, grew as the administrative centre of the isolated eastern district, with government offices, a school, a police post and a row of shophouses.

For most of the twentieth century the way in was by boat: a speedboat run through the mangroves from the capital, or a slow road journey through Malaysian territory with border formalities at each end. Oil money brought roads, clinics and electricity, and conservation policy set aside large areas of the interior as protected forest, with Ulu Temburong National Park — the country's first — protected from 1991 and reached only by longboat. The opening of the long bridge across Brunei Bay ended the district's isolation, putting Bangar within about an hour's drive of Bandar Seri Begawan and making day visits from the capital straightforward.

Temburong has a mixed population, and Bangar is where that mix meets. Malay and Kedayan villages sit alongside Iban and Murut — locally Lun Bawang — communities whose longhouses, festivals and languages come from a different Bornean tradition, and Chinese shopkeepers have long held part of the town's trade. The district is often described as Brunei's green corner, and people take a certain pride in living on the quiet side of the water.

Life is organised around the mosque, the school and the extended family, with the same courtesies as the rest of the country: shoes off indoors, the right hand for eating and giving, a thumb rather than a finger for pointing, and hospitality accepted rather than refused. Weddings and Hari Raya open houses draw people back from the capital, and the roads fill on holiday weekends.

Longhouse communities keep their own calendars and welcome visitors through guides or invitations rather than on the doorstep. Forest knowledge remains part of daily life — fishing the rivers, gathering ferns and fruit, reading the water levels — and much of the guiding work in the national park is done by people from these villages. Visitors are expected to dress modestly, ask before photographing anyone, and follow their host's lead.

Temburong is the least populated of Brunei's four districts, home to something in the order of ten thousand people, and Bangar is the only place that can be called a town. Its shophouses hold a few restaurants, general stores, a bank, a clinic and government offices; the rest of the district is villages, plantations, farms and forest reserve spread along the rivers and the roads.

Public-sector work, agriculture and small business support most households, and a growing number of people commute to the capital now that the bridge has cut the journey to about an hour. That link runs both ways: shopping, hospital appointments and secondary schooling often mean a trip out of the district, while the bridge has brought day visitors, weekend picnickers and tour groups in.

The day starts early, with the market busiest in the morning and offices opening soon after dawn; by evening the town is largely closed, and social life moves to homes and the mosque. Depopulation is the standing concern, as young people leave for work and study elsewhere, and set against it are tourism, conservation projects and the hope that easier access will keep families in the district.

Eating in Temburong is home cooking and simple restaurant food rather than anything elaborate. Rice comes with river and sea fish — grilled, fried or cooked in a sour, chilli-hot broth — with chicken, jungle ferns such as paku, and sambal made from chillies, shrimp paste and lime. Nasi katok, the paper-wrapped plate of rice, fried chicken and sambal that Bruneians eat at any hour, is sold in the town as it is everywhere in the country.

Ambuyat, Brunei's national dish, belongs here as much as in the capital: sago starch from the trunk of the sago palm, stirred with hot water into a thick, sticky, almost tasteless paste, wound onto a two-pronged bamboo fork and dipped into a sour sauce, then eaten with fish, vegetables and sambal. Sago palms grow in the district's swampy ground, and older residents remember when it was everyday food rather than a speciality.

The market supplies the rest: river fish, jungle vegetables, bananas and other fruit, glutinous rice rolls wrapped in leaves, and kuih, the brightly coloured rice-flour and coconut cakes eaten with tea. There is no alcohol anywhere in the country, so meals are accompanied by sweet iced drinks, fruit juices, coconut water and strong tea, and the coffee shops serve as the town's meeting places.