I drive to my work everyday except weekends. My work is 50 km away from home and it consumes almost two hours just for commuting on the road. So I always try to cheer myself by thinking funny things, listening to jokes on radio and trying to look out for nature while I am driving. Luckily, the scenery on the way to hospital is beautiful and there are lots of interesting things such as rising sun which gives orange hue and various pink color clouds in the morning, rainbows on the bridge, lush and green forest and various color wooden cottages on the way.
I always cross the bridge called Kuntan bridge ( a) Tanjung Lumpur bridge and thought it would be fun to take pictures of Kuantan river from the bridge. The reason I want to take photos is the landscape from the bridge is very nice and it includes the river with colorful boats, forests, mountain and mangroves which are homes for variety of fish and aquatic animals. Some believe crocodiles used to be there many years ago.
http://archive.gamuda.com.my/bridges_kuantan.html
Please bear with my mediocre photography skills and here, I have to include lots of photos because they are very nice to look at not because of the photographer’s skill ( It would be fabulous if I had a better camera than phone camera and IF I know how to take photo, haha) but the view itself is stunning.
To take all the photos, I have to park my car under the bridge , then I walked on the pavement till the bridge. It was very windy on the bridge as the breeze was not hindered by any building . It was not very sunny . I decided to take lots of photos from both sides. Sometimes the guys from motorbikes shouted and it startled me as I was very much engrossed into the view. For the bikers and drivers who passed through the bridge, it must have been a strange thing that a woman was standing on the bridge alone and taking photos. All in all, I really had a good time there.
Before I climbed up the bridge, I walked towards the river bank and observed the marshes and the river. I saw a man , fishing , sitting on the bank. There were lots of fishing nets pilling on the bridge. I asked him whether he got a lot of fish , he smiled and shook his head. I also saw a homeless man sitting near the river and washing his clothes. He looked a bit scary and scruffy . But if I have to start being scared of every homeless person around, I won’t be able to explore the areas I like anymore. So, I tried not to think of him and sat at the bank .
while I was sitting at the bank of river, I found a lot of orange and white color things running on the bank. They are very tiny and I thought they were insects , but found out they are actually crabs. I was fascinated because I never saw crabs as beautiful as this. The crabs has ten legs and they also have eye stalks so that they can see front , back and lateral. They also have two antenna which can detect the vibration and chemicals effectively. Once I step on the ground near their holes, they started to run inside their small holes.
To observe them effectively, I realise I need to sit and still at one area. I stopped chasing after them and sat quietly. Then all of them came out and started to dance. I know you will laugh if you read this. I also never thought crabs could dance like that. Their legs are very interesting, one of them is bigger than the rest. Some have big leg on the right side and some have on the left side. That makes me wonder whether crabs are left sided and right sided like humans. The reason one leg is bigger than the rest is they use the bigger leg to propel them forward. I really think they are dancing because the way they move is very synchronized. For a few minutes, I was totally entertained by them. Later, they didn’t bother anymore although I clicked photos ( may be they can’t detect the sound and only vibration ). I had to be very careful to have close up photos because they could scurry back inside their holes.
Here are a few photos of crabs
When the crabs realize I was not chasing them, they started to do their own business and didn’t bother about me anymore. If they could talk , their conversation would be like.
Crab 1 : Hey, let’s just chill and relax, the giant here is not going to catch us.
Crab 2: Ok, Ok, I m coming out.
Crab 3: Sigh! Definitely, we can’t be scared of anything .
Crab 4: let’s have fun and eat. I am starving.
Crab 5: How about practicing the dance, we promised to mom we would learn how to dance.
With that, they started their dance and I was totally amused by my own thoughts. I also wish I could bring my nieces and nephew later. My niece Cara who is now two year old is very fond of animals. But she might not have patience to sit quietly. Most probably, she would chase them mad.
After a few minutes, the sun started to go off and I decided to go up the bridge again to take pictures of sunset. I was quite disappointed because my photos were not as nice as real scenery outside. Please use your imagination a bit. The sun sank in slowly and there were lots of silver lining clouds on the sky. One time, it seemed like a crocodile ( clouds ) swallowed the sun. I was very happy , imagining different creatures on the sky. The clouds were fluffy and moved along very gracefully. I wondered “is there someone who is looking at me from above ? 🙂 In our Burmese culture, we believe there is an angel called ” Thagarmin”. He is someone similar to Santa Claus and he usually scribbles down the sins and merits of each and every person. Some believe he uses leather or hide as the paper. When a lot of people do bad things, his carpet start to get harden and then he always looks down whether we human beings behave well or not. Once a year, he comes down to the earth and we celebrate this by throwing water on each other. We call that ” water festival ” or ” Thingyan festival” . It is a very interesting festival because people dance, throw scented water on each other , wash the hair of old people, make snacks and distribute to neighborhood. Thailand celebrates that as throwing color powder on each other. You should witness it once in your life.
I love the water in the river. It is still and not turbulent like the water in the sea and oceans. It gave me the sense of calm and serenity. I watched the sunset and came back home.
I am grateful for the fact that I can have this kind of view just three minutes drive from my home.
Nature is amazing .It is free and everybody can equally feel it regardless of their social status.. One just needs time to feel the nature. It is very difficult to enjoy when our thoughts are obliterated by greed, worry and sadness. It gives different feeling to the different people at different time. I will try to catch up the river at dawn next time. Thank you for reading this.
Hnin adventures 