A look at Kuala Berang...

Greetings dear readers. Today, I've decided to start updating this blogspot using material unused since last year. For information, I've done plenty of travelling all my life but it's only since September 2006 that I've decided to record some of the places I've been at on camera.
All this while, I'd rather keep all the memories good and bad to myself as I don't feel the need to show to anyone or prove where I've been. But September 9th 2006 changed this when the remains of my great-great-great grandfather, Laksamana (Royal Admiral) Muhammad Amin was brought back to Perak's royal mausoleum after languishing for some time in Singapore due to a ban by the British colonialist on some 19th century Perak freedom fighters from returning to this land.

It was a rare historical moment of national, even internatiol proportion and I'll be a fool if I don't record a bit of the proceedings for posterity at least for family members to view. For information, click The return of Admiral Muhammad Amin's remains... .
This particular posting can be said to be a continuation of some pictorial stories about Terengganu made sometime ago. Chronologically, you can see this article picks up from where Gambar bersejarah Kuala Terengganu (Historical pictures of Kuala Terengganu) in my bilingual blogspot SENI LAMA MELAYU (MALAY OLDEN ART) left off... So go on, hope you enjoy it! Cheers! :]

Somewhere in the district of Kuala Berang towards the rural parts of the state of Terengganu, there is a place called Jenagor at the far reaches of the Terengganu river. One fine day December 20th of 2006 I went there to visit a rather mysterious and historical site nearby...

First I must go through this area. For information, the site in question along with the embarkation points are guarded by a group of people who styled themselves as the guardians of some lost Malay history.

From there, one can go down the steps to Terengganu river...

As it turns out, it was bad timing for me. It was low tide while much of this part of Terengganu river is rendered not so navigable by boat because of heavy silting, they say due to some development upriver.

I looked around. The special and mysterious site which I intend to visit is located rather far away across the river. The only realistic way to get there is by boat, have to wait sometime till high tide... Even then one have to labour, step into the water and push the boat at some parts. And the boat have a rather limited capacity while there are those who claimed they have been waiting the last three days for the chance to get across. The weather was not so fine anymore...

After deliberating for some time, I decided to zoom off. Instead, I went to this old mosque at Kampung Buloh where I spent the night...

Not far from the mosque is this scene. See... The banks of the Berang river is starting to overflow because of heavy rain. The river feeds into the bigger Terengganu river. That's why the area is called Kuala (estuary of) Berang!

This is the main mosque of Kuala Berang. I once slept there during a previous visit. At the time, I managed to get across the Terengganu river by boat to get to the mysterious site of this story. Why is it myterious? Well, suffice to say, there is a tomb there said to belong to a saintly person know as Sharif Muhammad Al-Baghdadi, the man said to have inscribed the famous Batu Bersurat (inscribed stone of) Terengganu 700 years ago! That's all... Now my juice is starting to flow for the next writing... :]