Noon: Kampong Ayer - The world's largest water village

Our next stop is the Brunei river, the site of the water village.

Thousands of wooden homes are built on concrete piling on the water. They are connected by a maze of wooden walkways. It is home to about 42 villages and 30,000 people. Access is by one of the many motorised water taxis. The water village is complete with schools, police stations and shops. And no, there are no malls there yet. Most homes have motorised boats moored in the water. We even saw a school boat full of freshly-scrubbed and uniformed kids.

We are taken to lunch to the home of a local village headman. The food is served in the traditional way, on long mats on the floor. There's plenty of cakes and savouries too for starters. Lunch is rice with an assortment of fish, vegetables, meat and fruits. Even the tomato and chilli chutney has pieces of shrimp in it. We tell Ikram that we too will eat the food in the traditional Indian way, with our fingers. The folks are amused to see us eat like that.

Halfway through the meal, one of our hosts arrive with a bowl that has a pearly translucent glob in it. Most of the Indian eyes arch at the sight. There are foot-long thing sticks accompanying the stuff.

"Gum, try it," says Ikram. He proceeds to break a stick and uses it like chop sticks to dip in the gum. A quick twirl and he has a small glob on his sticks like a lollypop. He dips it in the tomato chutney and swallows. I ask him to make me one too and swallow, with 10 pairs of Indian eyes watching intently. The pungent chutney makes a good combo with the bland gum as it goes down my gullet. Seeing that I have survived, there are a few more volunteers. One of them makes a mistake of biting into the gooey stuff and then struggles to get it down his throat.

Sated and happy, we take leave of the family. We pose for a few pictures too with family members.

Image: The water village on the Brunei river is home to 30,000 people