Travelling Hopefully - Malled to Death in Brunei

So, what does the population of a country with no drinking, no gambling and no nightlife to speak of do for fun?  Answer; they shop.  They shop until they drop and then they get up and shop some more.  They shop until they die then get a necromancer to drag them back from the grave after which they go shopping.

It took me a little while to realise this but pretty much every building in the capital that isn't a mosque or government offices is a shopping mall.  A short drive out of town is a district called Gadong.  It's basically a bunch of shopping malls and markets stitched together and given its own name.

Feeling the need to sample the local culture l puttered across the river and threw myself bodily at the first shopping mall I could find.  I came, I saw, I shopped.  I even bought something.  Admittedly what I bought was three mini doughnuts and a can of strawberry Fanta but I bought them at a shopping mall.  It counts goddam it!  I also bought a couple of postcards in case the ones I mailed earlier don't make it back.

Well, I say I mailed them.  The post office was closed so what I did was dump the cards in what might have been a mailbox or possibly an ornate garbage bin and hoped for the best.  With shopping satisfactorily achieved (and I don't care what anyone says, doughnuts count) I headed off to the bus terminal (as you do) and then took some photos of a rather cute and oddly worded shrine.

The shrine commemorates the son and daughter of a previous Sultan who were (if I interpreted the plaque accurately) buried alive back in the fifteenth century.  According to the plaque they had been guilty of crimes against religious law and had to pay the penalty.  However the Sultan had arranged a sort of underground house with food and an air vent.  The sinners were conducted there in full pomp to what seems to have been a form of subterranean exile.  The plaque also notes the free confession made by both parties and expresses the hope that the contrition of the accused and the punishment inflicted in this world will be acceptable to Allah (the all merciful and compassionate) and  that they can stand before him with a clean sheet in the afterlife.

So what did they actually do?  The shrine is discreetly vague in this regard but according to my host they had a bit of a Jaime & Cersei thing happening.  The punishment may seem a little extreme but the only place such behaviour would have been considered acceptable is in ancient Egypt where it would have been pretty much mandatory.