Brunei

Today's number is 92. That's the number of euros (almost dollars too!) the Sultan of Brunai earns per second! That's a bit over $3billion per year for spending money! His home is the largest royal residence in the world with over 1700 rooms. The garage in the basement holds 1000 of his cars. The residence is shown in Picture 1. 

The Sultan was coronated in 1967, using the chariot shown below. 

In 1992 he celebrated 25 years on the throne, built the Royal Regalia Museum which houses the chariot and the gifts he receives and built the royal mosque shown below.

The mosque has 29 domes to represent the 29 sultans who have ruled for the last 600 years or so. Another view of the opulence of the mosque:

Meanwhile, his citizens love him because he provides, housing, schools and jobs. And how does he pay for this? He sits on a huge reserve of oil. He has signed a deal with Shell, where they bring it up, refine it and sell it and the government gets half the profits. Shell owns all the gas stations in the country. 

Last year the Sultan declared that the country would follow Sharia law, whether you were a Muslim or not. Our guide told us that Sultan can overrule this, however. Seems like he has a brother that's a bit of a playboy and needs bailing out occasionally. Hmmm....

It's an interesting place to visit. Don't think we'd like to stay!