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”.