June 16, 2001 - Saturday - Taiping to Kota Bahru, Malaysia
I didn't sleep too well last night and got on the bus not in too good of a mood. Paka, a Malaysia who missed his bus last night sat next to me. He was pretty chatty but friendly enough that I kept up a nice conversation with him for a few hours. He's a Major of the Malaysia army engineers and was traveling between assignment posts.
We talked on various Malaysia-related topics in politics, local plants, etc. He was fairly intelligent and knowledgeable. He was also telling me about the Muslim religion where a guy can take on more than one wife, with the first wife's blessing of course, but not necessarily required.
If a person failed to reveal it to the first wife and if she finds out, she could take him to court to get him to pay a fine. His wife knows about his second wife so he was OK, but he was going to his second wife tonight without his first wife knowing. He said it just saves them some hurt and heartaches, which I pretty much agreed.
After lunch, I had to swap my seat because the bus leaked A/C fluid on my seat. I left my towel behind in the process but finally arrived in Kota Bahru. After checking into the hostel, they told me there's a government-sponsored concert tonight and it was free for visitors so I went along with it.
 |
| Man making pancakes in Kota Bharu |
I bought some food at the night market just in case. The government gave us welcome bags that contained the arts program in Malaysia and also some cakes and water. The free bus was filled with white backpackers and I smelt a tourist trap.
It didn't turned out to be like that. After we got to the stadium, only our group was the foreign group. The whole stadium filled up with Malaysians, and after waiting for an hour and a half, the royal family finally showed up and started the concert.
During the wait, I got to know 2 English people sitting next to me. One is Lawrence and the other one is Louise. She has a shaved head with hair growing back to about half an inch, but I don't know if it's significant.
Lawrence and I got along quite well and we talked for a while. After waiting for a long time, we all became bored and a cat came on the field and our attention was to the cat. We giggled about it and made rude comments comparing the concert to the cat and the cat actually started taking a piss on the field but was scared off unintentionally.
 |
| Marching elephants at the Cultural Concertin Kota Bharu |
The concert finally started with elephants and people marching into the stadium and music that was pre-recorded. The finally started the concert and it was an interesting cultural experience. I wish they didn't prerecord the vocals though. One of the guy who came out to do introduction had a voice that was very similar to Cartman from South Park. Most of us were having a giggle fit every time he came up to speak.
 |
| Cultural Concert in Kota Bharu |
The night ended well and Louise and Lawrence decided to travel to the Perhenthian Island together tomorrow.
;)
;)
;)
