Although travel can sometimes be slower or more difficult during this Islamic holiday, it can be a great time to visit Brunei Darussalam in particular. During this time, the Sultan of Brunei hosts a ‘meet and greet’ session at his palace where everyone is welcome, and it is one of the only chances that most people will get to see inside the gates of one of the worlds most luxurious residences.
A Royal Breakfast Feast for 17,000
The festival of Hari Raya is a celebration of the end of the fasting month of Ramadan, where Muslims do not eat or drink during daylight hours.In Malay culture, and particularly on the island on Borneo, important festivals are often marked by ordinary people hosting 'open house' events, where the hosts provide food and soft drinks for their guests and accompanying visiting children are given an envelope with a small cash sum.
The Sultan of Brunei evidently observes this tradition of open house, and goes one better than the average household. Newspapers reported that upwards for 40,000 people visited on each of the weekend days that the palace was open to visitors for Hari Raya 2010, an amazing figure for a country with a population of just over 350,000. Each of those people gets treated to more than 8 choices of Asian main dishes, desert, and soft drinks by the gallon, after passing through fairly minimal security at the palace entrance.
Meeting And Greeting The Sultan And Queen Of Brunei
After feasting on royal cuisine, loyal Bruneians and a handful of curious foreigners move from the main open eating area into several rows of outdoor seating, segregated only loosely by gender as the separated queues of men and women remain alongside each other almost until the end of the procession. After waiting for the lines that arrived earlier to proceed first, both genders then file into another waiting area inside the palace, giving curious visitors a glimpse into the wealth and grandeur afforded to Bruneian royalty. Sadly photographs were forbidden from this point on and were only possible with a fair bit of espionage.
After queueing in a process that took four hours in total, the parallel lines of men and women eventually split into two separate formal function rooms and women greet female Bruneian royalty, including the Raja Isteri, or queen of Brunei, and male guests shake the hands of the Sultan himself, the crown prince, and other important male members of the royal family. Every visitor then leaves the palace via a gift stand and is presented with a gift box inscribed with the date and palace insignia and containing a piece of cake.
Certainly a memorable experience for anyone who happens to be in Borneo during Hari Raya, and a welcome way to bid farewell to the usual disruption often caused to travellers by the fasting month of Ramadan. Only the Sultan of Brunei could hold an event on such a grand scale; who else in the world has crockery for 40,000 people?
Charlotte Baird - I am a part time travel writer as well as a full time primary teacher from the UK , currently based in Brunei and working for the ...
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