As a person who has lived there for a large part of my life (family emigrated here to Canada), I can tell you guys first hand it's not all that it's made out to be.
It's true that the Sultan has much more money than any of us will, he is either first or second richest man in the world, constantly switching places with Bill Gates; the media always seem to mix up as to who really has the deeper pockets.
There is that misconception of association that a super rich ruler equals a super rich and fancy country, something akin to Dubai. I can assure you that Brunei is not glamorous; nor are his citizens rich by any means. The entire population of Brunei is only ~350,000 people, with only ~45,000 living in the capital city of Bandar. The rest of the country is made up of small towns like the size of Canmore. It is basically small towns peppered in between thick and dense Borneo tropical rain forest. All the "highways", if you can even call them that, are single lane roads. Only the roads around the capital city are divided 2 lanes. They are slowly building 2 lane roads, only if they are paving new road, not existing road.
There are no tall buildings to be even spoken of; take a look at Google Earth if you don't believe me. Yes there is a (ONE) glitzy hotel, the Empire Hotel & Country Club. There is a theme park outside of Bandar located in the town of Jurodong, that is all but a ghost amusement park. The theme park started off as an amusement park the Sultan built for the people, so naturally it was free admission & rides. The only problem is, the population of Brunei isn't even large enough to justify such an attraction. People go once, and never go again, because there isn't that much to do; it's not Disneyland we're talking about here. So what happens? Nobody rides the rides, so the rides don't get maintained, because they haven't been "in operation". Mind you this isn't some sort of old amusement park or anything, it was completed sometime in the late 90's with modern rides. The citizens are scared to go on the rides for fear that a ride might break down on them, leaving them hanging in mid air to die; that is exactly what happened in one incident on the only roller coaster. The amusement park is part of a "park" that also has golf and polo facilities. It is also the storage site of the vast collection of cars.
It is true that there are no taxes in Brunei, but that doesn't automatically make his citizens millionaires, or even "a hundred thousand-naires"
The average wage for a person there the last time I went back in 2002 was $40/day. I'm sure that wage has gone up by now, but can't be by that much. Before we emigrated here to Canada, my father's $60,000k/year salary was considered "rich".
I can assure you that nobody drives exotic cars like Ferraris, Bentleys, Porsches, etc. You would never see an exotic car street race video like with what you have in Saudi Arabia, Dubai, and the like. If the people were drowning in money, you would have seen plenty of these types of videos by now. There are however a lot of people who drive R32/R33/R34 Skylines, S13/S14/S15 Silvias, FC/FD RX7's, MR2/MR2-S, Supras, FTO's, etc; all your favourite Japanese tuner cars. There is also another reason why you don't see Dubai/Saudi Arabia street race type videos coming out of Brunei. By law, people are not allowed to modify their cars beyond factory specification, because the government claims that ANY type of modifications "cause accidents". This means aftermarket wheels, (yes, you read correctly, wheels!), intakes, exhausts, etc. That's not to say there aren't any modified cars or tuner shops. There's lots of modified cars around, but if you get stopped by a police officer, a simple bribe will do the trick. So if people are in the market for upcoming 15 year old JDM cars, I know just the place There are even Nismo/S Tune/R Tune versions of the Skylines running around, and we know those aren't just "stock"
Ok finally onto the Sultan. From what we citizens (former for myself
) know, the vast car collection was started by the Sultan himself, but it's his younger brother Prince Jeffri that has made it what it is today. Prince Jeffri is a playboy and has studied in Europe, hence where all this love of European exotics was born. The cars are all bought with the Sultan's money, so essentially, the cars do belong to the Sultan. Since the end of the 90's, the Sultan has been weary of his younger brother's spending habits, and has threatened to cut off his income. I'm not too sure what's the follow up on that, maybe someone else does. And no, the Sultan does not drive the cars, because frankly, he's a Sultan, people to drive him around. So I don't know who it is that has come up with this idea that they shut down roads for him to drag on. I certainly would have heard something about it from my friends and relatives after living there for 15 years.
The Sultan's wives don't drive their own cars either; I've never encountered the Sultan's car while driving before. But his wives are chauffeured around in a early 90's pink chameleon S Class last time I encountered them on the highway in 2002. When you see that car in your rear view, you clear to the side and let it pass, cause the chauffeur can drive as fast as they want.
I hope I brought just a little bit of insight into this relatively unknown country situated in the Southeast. One last thing, if you ever really want to go there for a vacation, don't bother. Tourism is not something they particularly care about. There are no white sand beaches or night clubs, or night scene. Everything shuts down after 6pm. You won't see exotic cars from the Sultan's collection, because they're all locked up. All you'll see is small towns and jungle everywhere. Oh, but the Hainese chicken rice, satay, roti, rojak are all to die for.