Day 56
This morning we woke up and headed over to the pier because we were signed up for the Religions of Malaysia tour. Daniel and Debra were also on the trip. They told me some stories and showed me some pictures from my birthday. Josie had stepped in human poop. It seems that someone was too blotto to find the toilet, so they took a dump on the floor. And unsuspecting Josie had stepped in it. Gross.
Our first stop was at Kek Lok Si temple. I don't know much about it because our guide was below par, but it is a buddhist temple. It was really beautiful with several different shrines to the different buddha incarnations. The base of the temple had a small pool that was filled with hundreds of turtles. They were all over the place. So many turtles. They should sell those suckers to a pet shop or something.
For some reason, religious centers are also commercial spaces, and the stairs to the temple were lined with souvenir shops. The shop keeps are constantly calling to you with, “Madam! You look here. All for sale. You want necklace? Madam!”It's weird to be called madam instead of ma'am. The temple had it's own souvenir shop inside as well.
Our next stop was the Anglican Church. I'm not sure what was special about it. Our guide didn't say anything useful at all.
On the bus to the church he had told us some stories about the different Buddhist shrines. One story was about the female who stood on a lotus. She had been the third princess who had disobeyed her father by not marrying when he told her to. So he sent her to a nunnery to do the worst chores until she changed her mind. Instead she did the chores with joy. He grew angrier and sent a witch to kill her. The witch tried to kill her with a saber, but when it touched the princess, it smashed to smithereens. The king grew angrier and had her exiled. (You can't ever depend on witches to do the job right.)
Eventually, the king got sick, and the only way to cure him was with a pair of arms and a pair of eyes. No one would give these. When the exiled daughter heard the news, she immediately gave her arms and eyes. The king soon recovered and heard what had happened. He then forgave the princess. Too bad she died from sacrificing her arms and eyes. But when she arrived in the afterlife, they said, “oh no, you don't belong here,”and she was sent back on a lotus. So now she is worshipped for obedience.
I think the story was more about being obedient than a buddhist deity. Religion is more of a way of life in the east. There were two other stories about obedience. In one a king had become sick. The doctor needed someone to taste his poop in the morning so that he could know what kind of medicine to prescribe. The only one who would do it was the son. Every morning he would stick his finger in his father's poop and tell the doctor what it tasted like.
In the other story a woman's mother-in-law gets sick. The woman stops breast-feeding her newborn and gives the milk to her mother-in-law. The mother-in-law protests, telling her that the child will die. But the mother says, “I am young, and I can still have more children if this one dies. But I only have one mother-in-law.”Are Eastern children really more obedient because of this? And where was the son?
Our next temple was, well, I don't know. I never saw our guide while we were there. He walked across the street to a noodle shop, I think. But there was a main shrine in the middle. You could burn incense or “money”as a gift to the gods. I gave up some dolla dolla bills ya'll.
Kelly, Kelsey and I decided at this point that we weren't getting anything out of the tour. So we were going to get our stuff off the bus and split for more meaningful things. The group was going to walk to another temple and then to the mosque, which was down a few blocks from where we were. The buses were parked at the mosque, we were told.
We decided to look around the mosque since we were there. And as we took pictures outside, a man beckoned us in to look around. “Come in before the prayer starts and they stop allowing visitors,”he said. He was very welcoming. He gave us shawls to cover our heads and took us inside. He told us about the sanctuary and that they don't put any pictures or symbols on the walls because they distract worshipers. Muslims pray only to God/Allah and nothing else. We saw the pool where people cleanse themselves before prayer. He showed and explained to us the prayer times and Islamic calendar.
Then he walked us out to a separate tower with a small room in it so we could talk without disrupting the prayer. He explained to us that the word Islam meant “religion of God”; Muslim meant “worshiper of God.”He told us that Muslims believed in all the prophets, but also included Muhammad. They still only prayed to Allah, though. He told us about the rituals: Muslims must pray five times a day, they must make a pilgrimage to Mecca once in their life and they must donate to charity once a year. He emphasized that Islam was not the religion that the media portrayed.
Before we left, he offered us any of the literature in the room free of charge. And he wouldn't take any tip. We thought he would demand a tip for showing us around since all other people wanted payment for small favors. But he said we could put money in the donation box; he would not take it.
We got so much more info out of this guy than we had gotten from our guide all day long. It was such a pleasant experience to tour the mosque. I was glad we had gone there separate from the group and received some benefit from the trip.
After getting our stuff, we wanted some lunch. We headed to a travel agency to try to plan our evening. We wanted to see a traditional dance performance or show of some kind. They were able to tell us about a dance at a restaurant in Batu Feringgi, but it didn't happen on Thursday nights. That worked out just fine because we were planning to go there today, but it was pretty late. We would just go tomorrow and see the show in the evening. We decided to go to the Queen's Bay mall today, since that was our original plan for tomorrow.
We hailed a cab and told the driver to take us to a cheap thai food restaurant that was also cheap. He took us to the perfect place. We got four dishes and drinks for only three dollars a person. And the food was delish.
Afterwards, our driver recommended that we go to the chocolate factory on our way to the mall. It was a good idea. We got to taste the different kinds of chocolates, like coconut, espresso, covered fruit and nut and durian. They were all really good. We each bought four handmade pieces.
From there we went to the Queen's Bay mall. Kenny, the driver, said he would wait outside for us. The mall wasn't too impressive, besides its size. It was huge. Six stories. But the stores were all the same as in America. They had several shops where you could buy massagers for your neck, chair, bed, whatever. There were restaurants all over the place too. And in the center of the mall there was a huge golf store. Complete with driving practice tent. We have a fountain in the mall in Tulsa and a waterfall in Boston. Needless to say, we didn't buy anything there.
For dinner we went to a place near the pier called the QE II. I felt like royalty when we walked in. They escorted us upstairs, and two waiters opened the double doors to a room we had completely to ourselves. Maybe we were early for dinner, but it was about 2000. A few other tables filled after a few minutes. We got to talk for a while with the owner. His name was Sam, and he also owned SOHO. He was Malay, but raised in Britain. It was strange to meet an asian with a british accent.
After we stuffed ourselves with yummy dinner and dessert, Sam invited us downstairs to the bar for drinks. He bought the first one and sat to talk with us for a while. I can't believe how empty the place was. He was probably bored most nights. He told us all about Ladies' Night on Fridays. They had free drinks from 20:30 to 22:30. They also did nails and hair for free and had dancers. Sam really wanted us to go. He kept reminding us of it and making sure we would tell our friends. We couldn't tell if there was some sort of catch.
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