In the distant past, when I was in my childhood I had never envisaged that Terengganu city was vibrant one. By the time I had a quick glance at leaflet pertaining to Terengganu tourism; it was not my fondest dream to pay a quick visit to the city. I just broadly conceived that it was a small and dull town where was not densely populated with a number of people. What’s more, I worked out that it was likened to somewhere countryside.
On my arrival to Terengganu, I sighted everything appeared to be contrary to my expectation. As at the first place I got a fleeting glimpse of the city; everything seemed to be slowly sat in motion. Additionally, everything was orderly and systematically organized and was kept fastidious, people were very nice, friendly and approachable – possibly to make me feel secure to go anywhere.
True to form, at sunrise and sunset, Medium-wide streets and narrow lanes were occupied with bikes and cares. Footpaths were filled with pedestrians. Now and again, I felt as I was in my hometown, Pattani.
People were fully clad in Malaysian-traditional dress – males were dressed in long trousers and suited shirts, and females had long-to-feet skirts and long sleeve shirt which is right to Islamic perspective and principle. Again, I felt like I was in Pattani.
After a pleasant greeting by the city’s serene vista, I was offered by choices of welcome tourist attraction places. As a result, I would give the impression towards the city’s surrounding that it was thriving and vivacious one. The numerous high-rising buildings stood steadily against breezy spot by the sea. The city was not large one where there were a few tourist destinations such as, shopping center and museum, but many nearby tourist places were very eye-catching and attractive such as, Taman Tamadun Islam (TTI) or Islamic Civilization Park, Crystal Mosque, Pasar Payand (Payand bazaar) and so on.
On the second day as I was in the city, my friends and I set to move around the city, the places nearby particularly. Our schedule was conducive to give high priority on TTI where there were world-wide duplicate mosques built to create a center of attention from people around the world especially Muslims.
As the bus was rolling in, the fence of the park gradually appeared which I could see at far sight. As the bus was approached to the park, it became clearer that it was embellished with stunning feature – colorful paintings. Actually, the park was designed resembling to mosques because there was a white building having a white dome. Likewise, the park was also aimed to bear a resemblance to “the borderland” because everybody had to stamp an entering passport.
Subsequently, I was determined to stroll leisurely to Malaysian duplicate central mosque and sat foot in the mosque together with tuning in to video relating to the mosque. After that my friends and I were hurriedly quick to take photos of the mosque with intention of taking them as engraved memory.
After a while, I swept my gaze around the park, I witnessed that most conspicuous and highlights ones in the park were al-Haram and al-Aqso duplicate mosques. That was to say, while coming within reach of my eyesight, the al-Aqso mosque was very striking that I felt as if I was in Palestine. When entering the mosque, I observed that there was a big stone standing outstandingly at the center of it. From which my friends and I were very absorbed in taking photos as I, once, pretended to be praying while taking photos. Also as far as I observed, today everybody appeared to be happy and ready to be acting like anything while taking photos. It took several minutes to finish taking them until everybody were satisfied to leave.
Then, everybody intentionally headed to another splendid mosque that was al-Haram. Seeing at distance, it seemed a big duplicate mosque where we could go in and watched its inside feature, but as I came closer it looked there were nothing inside the mosque, where I could not even enter into it. What I could do was that I just walked around and photographed with my friends. I tried to lean myself against the wall and looked into the mosque, but I saw nothing except duplicate Kabbah. At the time taking photos, I did not enjoy myself a lot because there was raining. At last, we had to move to other duplicate mosques…
Having Travelled to Terengganu was very fascinating experiences that I could not find them in other places. It was very fortunate for me that I could come to know the real picture of Terengganu city. It was one of the most beautiful and attractive cities in Malaysia that I have gone – besides the beach, crystal mosque, there is another interesting place that I think everybody should go that is Taman Tamadun Islam (TTI) or Islamic Civilization Park. The park is telling the history of the very prominent mosques around the world. Furthermore, the park enables us to feel that we were visiting the real ones. This is one of wonderful experiences in my life that I have ever visited abroad.
interesting story.
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