In Possesion of Brunei Passport

I apologize for not blogging for quite some time due to a combination of sheer laziness and a busy schedule.

I left Singapore for Brunei about a week ago, shortly after the launching of the new Brunei biometric passport has been made official in the local papers. Having been bestowed Brunei citizenship by His Majesty The Sultan and Yang Di-Pertuan of Brunei Darussalam three months ago, I decided to exercise my right to apply for a Brunei national passport.

The Brunei national biometric passport is a red little booklet for international traveling. The biometric passport costs $60, and encompasses a whole new set of security features - laser printing, a biometric chip, different watermarks etc.

The new passport is aligned with international standards set by International Civil Aviation Organization(ICAO) and its biometric chip contains permanent information of the holder's 10 fingerprints and biometric facts such as facial image and so on to verify that the examined passport is genuine and owned by the rightful person.

More interestingly, the authorities have revamped the design of the passport pages. It now contains some famous sceneries from around the capital, e.g. Istana Nurul Iman and the famous Kampong Ayer.

The whole project costs the government $7.1 million. One of the main reasons is to allow Brunei travellers to visit nations such as the United States, which has enforced the use of the new passport, in conjunction with its Visa Waiver Travel programme. This means that I can now enter North America without a visa.

The new passport also promised to cut down on entry processing time at immigration checkpoints. Brunei passport holders no longer have their passport stamped when entering or exiting Brunei Darussalam since the middle of April.

Recently, I felt extremely proud to be holding a Brunei passport. Brunei is one of the three countries to enjoy visa-free entry in China (PRC) for 15 days. Due to the upcoming Olympics, Singapore passport holders now have to apply for a Chinese visa starting from July, whereas Brunei passport holders can continue to enjoy the visa-free privilege.

In conjunction with this, I managed to made a small busines by selling crackers from Brunei - a local delicacy to my dear colleagues. It was the first time I'd seen Brunei crackers so ppopular outisde the country. At least I can make some extra money for this month, haha..

Finally I am stateless no more.....