Part 4: The Tomb of Sultan Bolkiah

Onto the second royal grave! This time it's Sultan Bolkiah's. He's the fifth Sultan of Brunei and he ended his reign in 1521. Currently, our monarch is Sultan Haji Hassanal Bolkiah and he's the 29th Sultan of Brunei. ^_^

Sorry, I know Razkil wasn't looking his best with the wig and the glasses. *laughs* But since I'd brought them along, I'd thought it'd be nice to see something different on him.

Down the red brick road to the rest hut where we can find out about the Sultan's grave.

This resting hut isn't as new or as lovely as the previous one at Syarif Ali's. Please folks, let's us thank Mars for being such a willing model so that pictures without the boys in them don't look so impersonal and boring. *laughs*

Here's Razkil (looking a bit horrible) in front of the plague telling you about Sultan Bolkiah. Apparently, they translated Makam to mean mausoleum as well. Mars read a bit and she said that apparently he was the one who had managed to bring the whole of Borneo Island under Brunei rule. Right now, Brunei is a pitiful little bit on the whole of Borneo Island, when back then we were the _whole_ island. *laughs*

And so we walk some more towards the er..mausoleum.

This one, while also built around a bit, is a lot more pleasing than the more modern structure of Syarif Ali's place.

We passed a fort on the left. You can just seen the stone of the original wall. A roof's been built over to prevent rain from eroding away this piece of our history. Apparently, the area Mars lives in was named after this fort: Kota Batu, which means Stone Fort in Malay. Admittedly, forts in my mind were large stone medieval structures, or those made of timber like in movies. Hahaha. So even when I was up close later, I couldn't see it as a fort. ^_^;;

They built this place to look a bit like a park. I kinda find it pleasing. It goes with the peacefulness of the place. On both sides of the domed structure are graves.

Mars says her father's youngest brother is actually buried here. I don't know which or where nor did I want to ask, in truth.

Of course someone again had to remark that it's disturbing that we're going around looking at graves.

So we started feeling a bit depressed again, but I picked up them pretty bodies and walked towards the structure. I started from the left.

And again, we see graves which had been built over and around. This gravemarker probably titled that way ages ago so they had to allot quite a big space to it in the middle of the tiled path.

This wood marker had been broken off long ago as well. I find it pretty that all that green is growing out over onto the ground they'd tiled. It looks as if they're trying to reclaim the ground.

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