Our New Blog

We have now started a new blog. It's called "Berteduh diBumi Bertuah"

The Ending

This is it. Finally after three years, it’s the end of the road.

When I started the blog, the first entry was an experiment to see if a blog is actually useful. We didn’t know how the journey would go. At the end we managed to keep it going and went strong for those three solid years. We gathered a growing number of regular followers as well. This blog has been a record of our experience and many travels during our stay in Holland for three years. During that time we managed to log in about 700 blog entries. The intent was to share our experience and to provide a few pointers so that it could be useful for others.

For the first two years we hid ourselves behind pictures to remain anonymous. Many people were wondering who we were. Then friends and families encouraged us to put our photos on and we gradually started to show ourselves. But we still tried to put a right balance there as this is not meant to be a face book forum. Sometimes there were a bit of rantings here and there but we tried to be always constructive in the writings. The kids have also provided quite a lot in providing photos and suggesting what to write.

During those times that we spent in Holland we have met and forged friendship with many new people of various nationalities. There are also few friends that we started to re-link through the blog – a few examples like the Bruneian in LA, Canada and old friends in Brunei.

We did quite a lot of traveling, some may wonder what were we actually doing there in Holland- seemed that we were enjoying and traveling endlessly. Everybody is busy and occupied in their life through sports, golf, social activities and other things. For us traveling is our passion. Through traveling we see the world more, learn about the peoples, histories and places. The traveling also rekindled our interest on history books and general readings. We also learnt what make people and civilisation what they are now. We hope that these knowledge and experiences will help our children see and understand the world better and help them shape themselves and form their opinions.

We tended to use our work leave and school holidays fully for traveling, to short and long distance places. All in all we managed to write about every single travels that we made - to Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Turkey and U.A.E in the Middle East, to Belgium, France, Spain, UK, Switzerland, Austria, Italy, Germany and Iceland in Europe. We didn’t manage to cross the pond to US though. There were many memories. When we asked the children what did they remember the most, more often it is the people that they remembered best. Apart from that were the unforgettable 14 hours train ride from Cairo to Aswan, the unbelievable bus ride across the Sinai desert, swimming and floating on the Dead Sea, the desert 4WD ride at Wadi Rum in Jordan, the Petra and so on. And of course the many visits to factory outlets and shopping malls.

It has been a journey. There are many who we know are regular readers to our blogs – friends and our families. But there are many more who we didn’t know. Regardless, thanks for all your support, friendly comments and going along the way and following the journey as well. We hope everyone found the blog useful, educational and entertaining. Obviously we seek forgiveness if there is any offense or mistake.

Now that we are no longer the “Bruneian Family in Holland” anymore, there is no point to continue with the blog. As we are settling ourselves back to the local environment, there are few things that had to be done and adjusted to. It will take some times.

As for the plan for the future, we hope to start on something new on the cyber world. Our three kids are hooked on Face book but we have not seriously considered that. We may. We are real slow starters like anything else. We tend to dive on something we like than to follow the mob. We have to see how it will go. Maybe we open a new blog but on an entirely new theme. Time will reveal. Thanks again for your supports. Appreciate all your pleasant gestures and friendships. But most of all this only happened with the guidance and blessing from our Creator, God the AlMighty. For the health, rezeki and safety only come from Him. We pray and hope that we will continue to receive the blessing from Allah and also pray the same for everyone. Amin.

As we enter the Holy month of Ramadan, we wish our Muslim friends and family the blessing of Ramadan, that you have good health to perform your ibadah and maaf zahir batin.

Yours truly,

Azhar, Suhar and our three kids Hafizah, Hazimah and Faris aka the “Bruneian Family in Holland”.

Home Sweet Home

We have landed. Finally we are home......

Jalan-jalan Cari Makan

Sometimes when we read the various blogs from our country, we always lament why people only write about food and nothing else. It may be that there is nothing extraordinary to write except for their recent adventure to an eatery place. Now we are guilty of doing the same.

Today is our last day in KL. Tomorrow is our flight for the final leg going home. Every stopovers that we made, we picked up a few kilos here and there to add to our luggage. The last one out of Dubai saw our luggage already reaching our entitlements - 150kg. Tomorrow will see how it goes at the airport.

The few days we were in KL the kids prefer to stay at home and only venturing out to eat and to buy books. The swine flu is one thing but they are also a bit tired from two weeks of traveling. Outside, not many people are actually wearing masks. The whole place looks normal except that there are less children outside. One thing that seems to be predictable here is the heavy rain and thunderstorm in the late afternoon which goes on for a couple of hours. It is such a nice sight. The weather here is so pleasant.

A less known place behind Istana Negara

Where can you find amongst the best ikan bakar in the middle of KL?

Try this place which we went to today together with our bro and sis in-laws. The place was also recommended by Rafie and wife back in Holland. The place is a Medan Selera along Jalan Bellamy located behind Istana Negara. If you want to go there by taxi, just mentioned Ikan bakar belakang Istana Negara - they will definitely know the place. It is a well hidden spot except for the locals here.

There are about four food-stalls/restaurants altogether, all were crowded today, but we went to the one right at the end owns by a family who came from Sabah. The place is only opened during lunch time and closed on Sunday. So if you don't mind eating during the day, in the heat of the day in a fairly simple setting, this is the place. Best time is to go before 12 before the office crowd start to pack the place.

It is all self service there. Once you manage to find seats, you then proceed to collect the plates of grilled fish of your choice. Then get the rice and the ulams to enjoy the meal. The restaurant helpers will go around and write down the list of items on a piece of paper for you to present to the cashier afterward once you finish the meal. The prices are pretty reasonable. The fish range from 10 to 25 ringgits per plate. The rest are pretty cheap.

Food Galore

We have had enough of Arabian food from our Middle East stop overs. Now is the turn for the food that we have been longing for. One of our favourite eating places in KL is Sri Melaka restaurant. They have one branch at One Utama. Today we went there for a quick bite. We love their curry Laksa and their Cendol.

For the evening we brought the kids to a simple eatery place. The kids were longing for mee mamak and mee tiau. They have a few things on their list to eat before Ramadan sets in. We didn't fully realize until today that Ramadan is just a few days away and we won't have much time to eat outside when we finally reached Brunei.

Batik Outing

After catching up some sleep on our first day in KL, we spent some time at Kak Noriah's batik boutique at Taman Tun Dr Ismail. She is the owner of Atikah's Songket. The place is just a stone throw away from One Utama Shopping complex or about ten minutes drive from the place we are staying at Sri Hartamas. From KL centre, it may be about 30-40 minutes drive if the traffic is not too busy.

Originally a native of Terengganu, she specializes only in batik fabric from that state.

Back to the Tropic

Landed at KL just after 6 am today. We didn't get enough sleep though. Our anxiety about the swine flu has long gone. Except for a few people wearing masks in the plane, the situation seemed not as bad as we initially thought. The food in the plane was good with satay to start off with.

We headed straight to Sri Hartamas, our homes for the next few days. We have been staying in various hotels for the past two weeks. So it's good to stay in a proper home for a change. Also for the kids to meet up and spend time with their cousins again.

It was raining heavily in the afternoon, a real pleasant feeling. After the heat of Dubai, this is a much welcomed change in the weather.

To Nasi Lemak, Laksa etc...

Today we are continuing on our journey. Our next stop - KL.

We are leaving behind a city in the making. Even after all the many years of mega constructions, there are still giant cranes everywhere .....new buildings, new shopping malls, new hotels and so on. The new metro system is almost done due to be opened on 09-09-09. Unfortunately the metro brushes off a bit of the gloss of the city scenery. Because the metro is an elevated type, the view to most of the buildings are somehow obscured by the metro.

We are flying on yet another airlines - MAS. We doubt the seat will be as nice as the Emirates. The flight is still two hours away. The boys are just spending time in the lounge while the girls still have some energy to look around the duty free. One thing that we are not sure is whether we have to wear mask in KL. The swine flu seems to be a big worry there. That's for another update....

Feeling the Heat

Best advice to visit Dubai - go during the colder months. Normally we could spend many hours on a tour. In Dubai because of the heat everybody pleaded that if we were to do a tour, be sure to get a very short one. So we just took a 3 hours city tour which took us to the main landmarks. In our first few stops, such as the one by the beach looking at the Burj Arab Hotel, the heat was quite unbearable. It was only 9 am and the temperature was already 38 Deg. C. We found it amazing that there are lots of people on the beach, sunbathing and cooking their skin. We guess it is called adaptation. Or desperation.

But looking around, presumably only during this period of the year, the people here are trapped in their air-conditioned houses, air-con cars and air-con malls. Even the workers seem to be hiding in air-con bus stops waiting for their air-con buses. We thought living in Europe we were always trapped in our house because of the cold weather that we envy those in warmer climate where they spent more time outside. But now we realize that we definitely spend more time outside in Europe. Heat seems to be a big restriction compared to the cold weather. Kids still play football and cycle even during the worst of the winter.

The only people who we saw outside were the construction workers - the ants. They are working in extreme conditions and paid quite a paltry salary. A few numbers were mentioned but I won't quote it as it is quite a sensitive subject here. Most of them came from the Indian sub-continent. There must be millions of them. In fact when me and Faris performed the Jumaat prayer at the old part of Dubai, we always thought that the mesjids would not be crowded as there are mesjids every few hundred metres apart. But it was full and spilling to the car park. It is reminiscent to some places in the city in KL. Some of the drivers just made a spot next to their car and performed the Jumaat there. And the mesjid that we went to was almost composed entirely of Indians, Pakistans and Bangladesh. So Dubai is a city of Expatriates. Each expatriate population has its own enclave. It is such a weird place.

At the Mall

We spent the day at the Dubai Mall. The place is enormous. I thought the Pavilion in KL was big, this is super big. The Dubai Mall must have been 10 times bigger. May be a bit exaggerating there.

There were so much spaces between the shops in the mall as if you are walking on an actual high street. We could not imagine how much it takes to cool the whole place, Faris keep on questioning whether the owner is eco-friendly and care about the environment!

One thing that we noticed immediately in the Mall is that as if we were in the middle of Manila. Almost all the workers and shop attendants are Filipinos. Imagine each shop has 10 of them and there are over a thousands shops. The Filipinos do not only have a language advantage but there are millions of them willing to fill the labour market here. Only the upmarket shops like perfumes and watches are manned by Indians and Arabs. Whereas the house maids are mainly Indonesians and Sri Lankans taking care of the kids while the masters are hopping from one shop to the other.

Our kids were asking what are the locals actually earning on. I guess most of them are white-collar workers or filling government jobs.

The Mall itself is a great place to spend the whole day. There are all sort of facilities. The water fountain show outside and adjacent to the tallest building in the world is on after 6 pm. The Mall has an ice rink, a huge fish aquarium, food courts and so on. The prices here are reasonable although European goods are a bit pricey compare to back in Europe. One nice thing as well is the number of toilets and suraus. The toilets are super clean, manned all the time by cleaners. The suraus are every where and large and always quite busy. It is such a contrast to Istanbul where the Muslim's attitude are different. In Istanbul people claim to be proud of their Islamic heritage and not really wanting to be part of Europe and yet mosque are quite empty except to be visited by older generations. Here the Arabs are embracing fully the concept of modernisation and westernisation and yet the call of each prayer is something not to be compromised where ever there are.

We ended up spending 10 hours in the Mall. We were taking our time - spending time at the Kinokuniya, the food courts, the water fountains, the Arab Souks and so on. But then we probably only covered a quarter of the massive complex.

To a New City

Now in Dubai. Flight was on Emirates Airlines and took 3 hours. There was quite a delay to check in all passengers. All flights to Damascus from Dubai are full as people are doing their shopping in Damascus for dates and so on to prepare for Ramadan. These presumably are to be sold in Dubai. There were even two flights departing more or less at the same time leaving Damascus for Dubai.

The inside of the Emirates was quite amazing. It is such a modern plane with all the latest gadgets one could not imagine for a cost-cutting era for many airlines today. Emirates is really going all the way to make it really different from normal traveling.

Landed in Dubai, a place we don't really know much. Those many Bruneians in Oman know this place like they know their back of their hands, their normal shopping destination. The weather was hot. We always don't believe when looking at a weather forecast on Internet for places like Dubai. Normally they seldom publish actual temperature, not to scare off tourists. In most cases the published temperatures are 38 to 39 Deg. C maximum. When we landed at 5 pm, the temperature was 41 Deg. C. That is hot. We are not use to this level. When we went to the taxi bay, it was like an oven. The whole scenery looks hazy, not sure whether it is from the dust or just caused by the extreme temperature.

It will be a few days of exploring around. Not sure where to start with. May be one of those huge shopping mall. The place as I read through books is said to be an amazing place on earth. A new city for a new civilization. Looking around it definitely is.

A Girl named Mariam

In our many travels we get to see the local people closer. Whilst sitting at the courtyard of the Umayyad Mosque, relishing our moment in such an important and historical place, this girl and her brother came over to us and became very inquisitive. She asked questions and also told us her name. Then off she went playing and running around in the courtyard. She was definitely a happy girl. Syria is a poor country compare to her Arab neighbours. The country is also under US export embargo. Yet the people here are friendly and happy. It's nice to see the children are equally happy. Often you see unhappy faces of children in the media in troubled and poor places. Syria, Palestine and Iraq are amongst those places.

Old city of Damascus

The itinerary today was just visiting the old city. This is where the Ummayad Mosque is located. I wrote a few things already on this in my previous entry.

We also visited the tomb of the great warrior of Islam, Salahadin. Then the grave of our Prophet's grandson, Saidina Hussein.

We also dropped by to see a familiar face. The shop owners are regular visitors to Malaysia, Singapore and Brunei selling their goods. They just came back from the Brunei's Halal Expo. Their speciality - embroidery and table cloth.

Dining at the Old City

We went out for Dinner with my Syrian friend at a great restaurant in the Old City. It is called Al 'Khawali. Many famous people have dined here such as President Aroyo, Turkish Prime ministers and Arab singers.

The place has many rooms. VIP rooms and the general area was quite full. We opted to dine at the terrace level at the top. It was quite a late dinner, starting at 10 pm and we finished off around midnight. Amazingly some people were only starting to dine as we were leaving. Here I introduced the Syrian cuisine to the family - everybody love it.

Landing in Syria

Left Istanbul yesterday. And now we're in Syria. The flight to Damascus took 2 hours and again it was on Turkish Airlines.

Syria is hot. The temperature was at 35 Deg C. For Bruneians, we need a visa to enter Syria. One way is to get it through the embassy where for Holland the nearest is in Brussels. The other way is through an arrangement by Four Seasons Hotel in Damascus. We arranged a meet and assist service for arrival and this guy from the hotel would do the running and speeding up of the immigration process. Then we were whisked in two cars to the hotel.

For Turkey, no visa is required for Bruneians. The visa waiver programme only came into force a month ago. When we looked at the Internet and also sent an email to the Turkish Embassy, they advised us to apply for visa. We were only told of the change after going to the Turkish Consulate in Rotterdam and waiting for two hours for our turn.

Original Honey

During our breakfast at the hotel today, we saw this unique way of serving honey from its wooden hive or tray. Indeed this was the first time that we ever saw this thing and so there is no ambiguity on whether the honey is pure or not. The taste was excellent and the kids liked it.

It is actually easy to find online hotels at reasonable price that also includes breakfast. That's the power of the Internet. One thing that we also noticed is that most of these hotels also provide free wifi or Internet. This is not the case for many famous or established hotel chains, one normally has to pay for the Internet. Internet is such a basic amenities nowadays, this shouldn't be something extra to be paid.

We spent a couple of trips to the Grand Bazaar. The place is an amazing place. To best way to get around is by taxi or simply by just walking. Taxi costs about 3 to 10 Turkish Lira. When I asked the taxi driver how much they are making, they said it is about 10 to 20 Liras daily.