Pleasure of Scenic Journey
It was a very pleasant day. The chilly salubrious air motivated us to head out and we moved towards Sultan's Palace. The landscape unscrolls in infinite variety. We saw on either side of the street tall and exotic flowering trees with scattered branches that made the street cool and shady. Every bend in the road throws up a new vistas.
"Wow! awesome!! Punu exclaimed. Dad nodded his head. "Yeah, lovely spot" I too expressed my joy. Pooja said, 'let's go further, that place will amuse more'.
As we moved we came across a beautiful attractive park-Damuan Park where we saw varieties of trees, flowering plants bearing different colored flowers made the spot lovely.
The park was a good place for jogging. We saw other tourists who were engaged in a jolly jogging in the park. Punu and Rahul clicked many photos We walked through the park at the other side of the park we saw Brunei River. The park was fenced with steel bars. We stood there and viewed the attractive scenery.
At a distance we saw Sultan's palace. It was marvelous. The domes on the top of the palace twinkled in sunlight. I heard it is gold-made. The distant beautiful king's palace held me enthralled as I watched wide-eyed like a kid in a candy-store.
Then we set out to Bender Seri Begwan city the central part of Brunei where I could see for the first time heavy traffic and a bit crowd of people moving only in cars. Pedestrains were not seen there also but at a glance I could see only moving cars-cars and cars.
We saw many mosque.
I was very much delighted by the attractive sight of mosque It was Brunei Sultan Omar Ali Saifuddin mosque. Punu was fascinated by the lovely outlook of the mosque and clicked one after the other many pics. Rahul took video of the sight. Puju, Dad and me became dumb stuck admiring the lovely sight.
After that we did a side journey on water that was night-boating at the back side in Brunei river and watched every scene which we saw in road journey-park, king's palace, big buildings, mosque-entire city. Along the edge of the river belt we saw old buildings, large number of houses, schools and hospitals - Puju said, 'that is old Brunei. People are happy living in houses and children study in those schools that stood in the river." OMG! I was stupefied when I heard it.
Sitting in the boat I was just wondering, all of sudden I heard a 'thud' sound, the boatman found a moment difficult to move the boat, I felt it got stuck for a moment, it was night, nothing could be seen properly especially for me and my husband , my goodness I was bit scared and caught hold of my husband's arm he became benumbed. Punu, Puju and Rahul were not aware of our feelings. They were chatting and laughing aloud joyfully.When I told them about it, Punu said, " Don't worry Mom and Dad, nothing happens be cool and enjoy the surroundings we all are here together O k?" and he patted my shoulder.
We both were convinced when we heard Punu saying in soothing tone. We enjoyed the night-boating which was a quite different experience.
Indu Naik
