Kuala Terengganu Revisited.

Kuala Terengganu, the capital city of Terengganu has change tremendously since i last visited it, it has evolved into a crowded but beautiful city with lots of its charms and beauties still  can be experienced. My eldest brother asked that we drove along the river mouth or Kuala area so my daughter can see what was happening a sight which included the new drawbridge built across the Terengganu Rive mouth. It was too dark to see as the lighting was not ready yet but i enjoyed the sight and the unsightly as we wound our way through the narrow streets. I kept commenting to myself about how most cities like to built but they fail to maintain once they have built, garbage from the night's market was strewn haphazardly along the sidewalks like some attitudes never change. I grew up as a teen ager in this town for twelve years of my life, I was converted to Islam in this town. Getting my foreskin nipped at the Hospital was one of the most painful experience hard to forget. My teenage school buddies were among the most intelligent and gifted as today amny holds high ranking positions in the government and local industries. Our teachers including my eldest brother, were those who had returned from Kirby and Brmsford Lodge in England and thus  we were fortunate to have had them as our role models. Among them were arists like the late Redza Piyadasa and Ibrhim Isamil, Chew Teng beng and Yeo Jin Leng and Christopher Lai, among others whose works are among the sought after in the Malaysian Art market, whose reputation as art teachers is well accepted by  the locals and international art community. 

The vast open sea and the stretches of sandy beaches, the thick rain forest of the hinterland and swaths of rice fields was my source of inspiration growing up as a teenager in the small town of Kuala Terengganu during  the sixties and early seventies. Today it has joined the rat race among the other cities in the country with traffic as heavy and buildings sprouting all over; it has lost the nostalgic laid back fishing village ambiance of old. Hardly see a kite in the skies nor a fighting fish in the homes, the children have joined the high tech video dimension of existence.