Finger food

When eating with Indians, all food is suddenly finger food. It somehow isn’t easy dropping the imprinted Western demand for dinner table etiquette (at least for me); it was rather awkward. David snuck an embarrassing picture mid shovel and now that I have the benefit of seeing, I can understand a bit more why my small audience of little girls was giggling.

So today I got back on the road! Back to routine but a sad goodbye to David and his amazing hospitality. I’m sure I could have stayed there for _months_ if I asked him and been just assimilated into his family and friends; truly an amazing human being. He rode with me 20k south before parting ways; before which of course I was given yet another meal, oh my god so much food! I seriously was fed nonstop; I need to take a serious break from competition eating and get back to basics.
Settled on Kuala Kangsar as my destination for the day; 80k ride with a 3k gradual climb along some nice small waterfalls.

Not sure what all these flags were about but I think they have something to do with a political group that probably would not like whities like myself and my Israel loving comrades, whoops.

Tentatively the plan is to ride the 50k more to Ipoh and then hop on a bus same day to Cameron Highlands. From there, don’t know; all I really know is that I have only a week more in Malaysia and have to be choosy about what I do (and of course be back in KL for the flight). Speaking of the capital, I’ve found it a bit strange that it’s almost unanimously referred to as "KL" and never its full name "Kuala Lampur". I figured this would be some tourist thing non locals used but its near universal.
Haven’t done anything here yet besides find the budget place to stay in town and reluctantly converse with a disgusting older man from New Zealand with an attitude more rancid than burning rubbish. He’s one of those guys who thinks Pattaya is paradise; that’s prety much sufficient summary for anyone who knows even a little about Pattaya.
The past few days with David have been amazing; so many unforgettable experiences that I felt so fortunate to be a part of.
Day three of my stay, David lead me through his usual fishing town haunts; this is a ride that he takes most visitors but it also varies each time.

The fishing villages are a bustle of Chinese and Malay going about their daily business of catching, hawking, chopping and drying all manner of creatures from the sea. Stingrays seemed to be in demand as they were everywhere. They even use their skins for purses (like leather) and the bones for grinding into a calcium supplement.

 

In another little village, saw a giant roaring tumbler machine that sorted some kind of clam like mollusk. David had the roadside vendor grab some to cook up and try. Not bad but I preferred mine drowned in chili sauce.

Bridge over one of the larger towns afforded some nice views

In town we made a stop at a Chinese "kedai kopi" (a coffee shop/restaurant) to see some of David’s Chinese friends. Before I even stepped into the place I could hear and see flashes of these people and knew this would not be pleasant. All four of them were clearly plastered; one already in a dreary state on the verge of blackout that I swore would tumble out of his chair at any moment. It wasn’t long after I was given a place amongst them to be seated that a shirtless stringy tattooed Chinese man was grabbing my arm with more force than I was comfortable with and displaying proudly for me the bottle of alcohol they were imbibing in the middle of the day repeating the words "Chinese, Chinese"; I guess indicating the origin of the liquor (which given the Chinese characters was not very hard to figure out). I was poured an enormous glass of the stuff which was nearly raised to my lips for me by this pushy man. Putridly foul and my god, they had already gone through 6 bottles of the stuff. The pressure to consume this terrible Chinese liquor was relentless; I can only guess that they, especially this one man, wanted me to be as "happy" as they were as quick as possible. Happy wouldn’t exactly be my choice descriptive word for them: a lot more along the lines of "sad". There was no way I was going to be pressured into drinking the amounts they desired me to especially given both the terrible taste and worse atmosphere. I switched seats with David to distance myself from this menace of a man but it did little good. Thankfully David got the hint (he was even perturbed at this point) and we made our escape. We both made our apologies about the situation but I knew we were on the same page and no worries were to be had; onward!
Another visit to a group of David’s friends but such a difference in quality. We were seated amongst coconut palms where the infamous coconut wine I had tried earlier was being brewed. I saw how the seasoned collector scaled the palm trunk with ease arriving at a coconut flower that has been bound with string to prevent it from opening. Over this, a vessel had been placed to collect a sweet liquid that would accumulate over time.

They let this juice sit out to ferment; sugar to alcohol. The resulting beverage is actually not that alcoholic, at least it doesn’t taste like it, but from hanging about the place for the rest of the day I had a feeling that they simply weren’t fermenting it very long as there was constant demand from thirsty patrons at the makeshift table arrangements. Its a great place for friends to all come together actually. Everyone shares from a few pitchers of the coconut wine and most people seem to bring some sort of food item that is then shared amongst everyone. My favorite food I would have never guessed: monitor lizard! It’s quite tasty..no really, it is!

We saw a few cross our path during the ride today; big suckers.
 
Nice look going on there Dan:

Next morning, nonstop adventure continuing, we set out to the water to catch us some crab! I figured we’d be meeting some fishermen there who but David actually has all the gear; he brought his own traps.
 
The traps are baited and set out at low tide. If I understand correctly, as the tide rises the crabs start making their way closer in. After the traps were set, the only thing left to do was wait (and in my case, nap). Despite David claiming the bait wasn’t the right type, he caught eight crabs!

David is constantly keeping his ear to the ground listening for any news of upcoming weddings or festivals to attend. It happened to be that he caught wind of a fire walking and piercing ceremony! Hugely lucky on my part, it happens but once a year (and on top of that all the other things I had already seen!).
Out of this world! Never would have imagined I’d see such things in my life. Before the main gathering and fire walking, by the river bank devotees, both Indian and Chinese, gathered to prepare offerings atop banana leaves as spectators gathered around (myself being the only foreigner). Offerings placed, a band assembled to play traditional Indian instruments; all of which are mesmerizing to listen to, you can really feel the music in you. Buzzing and pounding music at full tempo, you can feel that something is about to happen and could see a crowd forming around one of the priests. The man who was, I assumed, to be the recipient of this ceremony, was surrounded by people who seemed to be psyching him up while the music played. He then, for lack of better words, went crazy. David tells me its a "trance" state they enter. In his trance, he was taken to the ground and dozens of shiny hooks suddenly appeared and each was sank into the skin of his back all the while not a drop of blood shed (!?!). Back to his feet, a five foot or so metallic rod with trident looking ends was about to be slid through his waiting cheeks. Seeing it slide through his mouth it was hard to even tell if what was happening was real.
 

A few of the younger guys took the festival as an excuse to do a bit of drinking; this drunk guy with a snake demanded a picture which I obliged; cheers drunk guys

I noticed how I by far wasn’t the only one shooting pictures. Other native Indians had their phones and cameras out snapping away this obviously being as much of a spectacle to them as it was to me. I thought it was a bit of a strange contrast between the modern moment capturing technology of cameras to what seemed like such an ancient and serious ritual ceremony.

The riverside festivities wrapped up and a procession was lead to the temple headed by two bulls pulling something I don’t know the name of but I suppose it’s closest relative is a parade float.
 
The temple, throngs of people now gathered, was where the fire walking would occur. Earlier in the day huge piles of wood were burned and now all that was left was a 40ft strip of smoldering coals. There was more ceremony, more entranced people and then, the walk. Some rushed across to reach the water pit on the other side I’m sure their feet were dying for while others made an almost casual stroll across the fiery walkway. I was quite a bit away from the coals but I could still feel the intense heat.
 

Like I said before, truly unforgettable. I was so grateful of David having shared this experience with me. I truly am lucky.

 

Off topic but I grabbed all of David’s pictures and he had one of the cyclists and I back on Penang

Bunch of scrawny guys there, must be cyclists indeed

10.Mar.09 South East Asia 2009