Brunei -

Just arriving in the world's largest stilted water village is an exhilarating experience. There are water taxis in cities all over Southeast Asia, but even the 'longtails' of Bangkok would have trouble keeping up with the waterborne fighter pilots who parry and slice around the pillars of Brunei's Kampong Ayer.

In a spear-shaped, high-speed launch emblazoned with BMW and Ferrari decals, the ride across the bay takes only a minute or two. But as the snarl of the outboard motor recedes into the distance you realise that you have traded the hi-tech marble and glass of the city centre for a tranquil and timeless world of winding canals and snaking timber walkways. In the morning old men fish directly from their front porches and in the afternoon children gather on quaint humpback bridges to fly their kites.

The first westerners to visit Brunei were Magellan's crew during their 1521 circumnavigation, and Vincenzo Pigafetta, the expedition's documenter, is generally accepted as a reliable chronicler (despite misquoting the name of the entire island, thus giving the word 'Borneo' to the world).

"The city is all built in salt water, except the king's house, and the houses of certain chief men," he wrote. "It contains 25,000 families. The houses are all of wood, placed on great piles to raise them high up."

The palm and rattan shacks have long since been replaced by spacious air-conditioned apartments with efficient piped water, gas and waste disposal systems. Powerful motorboats are moored under many of the verandas, and pastel-painted houses that were once decked only with bougainvillea and hibiscus now sprout the overgrown blossoms of satellite dishes. But Kampong Ayer continues to be home to some 30,000 people, and despite the changes the discovery of oil in 1928 brought, Pigafetta would surely still recognise what he called 'The Venice of the East' if he saw it today.

Kampong Ayer is the world's largest stilted water village -- its 28 separate wards combine to make an entire city, complete with schools, clinics, mosques, shops, petrol stations and markets. There are even waterborne police and fire services and a jail (though in almost crime-free Brunei there are rarely any inmates). There are elderly people who have not crossed to the mainland for years -- and cats that probably never will.

The estimated 20 miles of boardwalk make orientation difficult for an outsider, but the joy of any water village is simply to wander aimlessly. You might find yourself at a dead end where the planks suddenly disintegrate several metres short of a disused jetty; you might find yourself accidentally wandering into somebody's back garden. Happy children wave at you from verandas and somebody will always direct you with a smile or, very often, invite you inside for refreshments.

The best time of year for this is during Hari Raya Aidilfitri (the celebration that follows the month of Ramadan. This is when local households traditionally open their homes to guests. If you are appropriately dressed you will certainly be invited in to talk and share delicious kueh mor biscuits or chocolate kek batik. Visitors are invariably stunned to see the opulence of the front rooms; several (yes, several) three-piece suites and at least two perpetually blaring TVs seem to be the norm. Crystal vases and hand-woven rugs are proudly displayed, and overlooking it all is the ever-present portrait of the sultan.

With free education and health care, generous pensions, interest-free loans for cars and houses and even subsidised pilgrimages to Mecca, your average Bruneian enjoys one of the highest standards of living in the region. However, experts estimate that the oil which has made all this possible will be exhausted by 2020, and it is far from clear where the sultan will turn if Brunei is to maintain the luxurious lifestyle to which his citizens have become accustomed.

Beef, rice and forestry are possible options, but while fresh beef is flown in daily from the national ranch in Australia's Northern Territory (the ranch is actually bigger than the sultanate itself), rice has to be imported from Thailand.

Looking on the bright side, the exploitation of offshore oil and gas deposits has given Brunei's treasury an unexpected boost, and the country still boasts more than 2,000 square miles of rainforest. Nature lovers are increasingly hopeful that these resources are going to be dedicated to eco-tourism rather than the logging that has denuded much of neighbouring Sarawak and Kalimantan.

The name 'Borneo' has always had a ring of adventure to it, and many travellers are recognising in Brunei an irresistibly easy entry point into the world's third-largest island. A mere 45-minute boat ride across the bay from the capital, Bandar Seri Begawan, takes you to Temburong district, a jungle playground equipped with canopy walkways, rafting facilities, a research centre, and wildlife that is on the verge of extinction. There are even Dayak longhouses here, in various degrees of antiquity -- oil money has clearly not bypassed the ethnic minorities and the newest longhouse looks more like a neat row of suburban terraces than wilderness homes.

While there are already jungle reserves throughout the country and developers look set to exploit the eco-tourism potential further, it is not yet sure what the future holds for Kampong Ayer. There is currently no accommodation for tourists and only a couple of simple rumah makans offering fried rice or noodle soup. There is talk, however, of converting some buildings into chalets and turning terraces into open-air restaurants where tourists could spend a pleasant evening enjoying one of Asia's more interesting communities.

By Brunei's standards living conditions here are still considered low, and some sections of the administration refuse to see Kampong Ayer as anything but an eyesore in their vision of a bright and shiny future. A major problem is the fires that occasionally sweep along the timber walkways. Over the years whole neighbourhoods have been burnt down to charred stumps, leading the authorities to try to relocate homeless families to new housing estates. A few residents have volunteered to move to these modern (and relatively low maintenance) houses, but since many others are adamant that they prefer life on the waves, the government has responded by building a new ward out of fireproof concrete on the far side of the bay.

"My family has lived here for generations," Syed Bin Yousaf told me as we sat in his front room, surrounded by countless grandchildren. "Why would we want to move to darat?" he asked, using the Malay word for land. "Here we have our friends around us. On the land we would have to live among strangers. We are minutes from the city, yet we have no congestion here, and certainly no parking problems!"

There is a very real danger that Syed's grandchildren will be condemned to what they see as a sterile life on darat. Here's hoping that this 'Venice of the East' is allowed to claim its rightful place as one of the truly unique gems in what the Brunei tourism department calls 'A Kingdom of Unexpected Treasures'.