Bandar Seri Begawan

Bandar Seri Begawan is the quietest capital in Southeast Asia and quite possibly its richest per whisper: a small, orderly city of golden domes where the main attraction floats — Kampong Ayer, the water village where thirty thousand people live on stilts above the Brunei river, with schools, mosques, fire stations and cats, all connected by boardwalks and water taxis, as they have for a thousand years. Venice, the first Europeans called it; the residents had not been asking.

The sensible traveller flags a water taxi with a wave and crosses to Kampong Ayer for the boardwalk hour that explains the country — accept the tea if a family offers —; visits the Omar Ali mosque at dusk, when the gold softens and the lagoon's ceremonial barge holds the last light; eats at the night market, where ambuyat, the national sago paste, is twirled on bamboo forks; and takes the morning boat upriver, where proboscis monkeys commute through the mangroves with enormous dignity and no schedule.

The Guide's honesty: Brunei is dry — no alcohol is sold, and the evening plan is dinner, done well —; dress modestly and time mosque visits around the prayers; everything closes early and Friday midday closes everything: plan around the sermon; and the city is the gate to one of Borneo's best-kept rainforests — Ulu Temburong's canopy walk is the reason to add a day, and the longboat ride there is the reason to add two.