Giant Rats (and worse...)

The night market in Kota Bharu consisted of a chilled-out collection of food stalls surrounded by tables and chairs. Fruit and drink stands, complete with TVs, created the perimeter. Giant rats ruled the mounds of rubbish beyond, mostly out of eyesight, but not completely out of mind.

I started with a murtabak, a pan-fried flat bread filled with beef and onion, steaming hot but undeniably scrumptious. For round two I pointed out some kind of deep-fried balls on a stick and some lightly battered strips of a mystery vegetable, which turned out to be pumpkin. The more we ate, the more cats I noticed - not begging for food, just sleeping on chairs, or wandering around between naps. Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't cats supposed to eat rats? Especially fat, juicy ones? Instead, these skinny little cats seemed completely uninterested in working for their food, perhaps surviving off scraps given by over-friendly market folk. Were they simply too lazy to prey on the rats, or have the giant rats grown too big to take on? I found it a bit sad... but not too sad, because round three had begun, and soon I was chowing down blue rice. Yes, you heard me, blue rice - coloured naturally by some flower and seasoned with coconut, light vegies, sauce and prawn crackers. The skinny cats were quickly forgotten, and I left the market with a full belly.


The following day we witnessed a demonstration of the traditional Malaysian art of self-defense Silat Tari. It was a cross between martial arts and dance; two performers danced around each other for a few moments, before finally engaging in a string of swift blows. The focus seemed to be more on art than actually harming the other person, but it was entertaining to watch. Roselan, the host of the demonstration, then invited myself and another guy to give Silat Tari a go.


I thought I did pretty good, but apparently the video suggests otherwise. Bah! Put me in a real fight! I was ready to give that guy in the middle a bit of the old one-two.

Now that would make an entertaining video...

As per our goal of seeing things off the beaten track, we spent the next day driving around with Roselan, who showed us arts and crafts off the usual tourist trail, as well as a couple of more famous Buddhist temples. One of them was Wat Maisuwankiri, maybe 4km from the border of Thailand and famous for having a Buddha standing on its roof. Come down, Buddha, it's okay! The giant rats haven't taken over just yet.


There, in that temple, staring blankly from inside a glass box, sat a monk. It gave me a fright when I suddenly saw him out the corner of my eye. He was sitting cross-legged, dead still, not even moving to breathe, and for ages Kym and I just couldn't work out: is he real? He certainly looked real; I've been in a lot of Buddhist temples, and never seen a statue like this one. His eyes only stared straight, as if he were deep in meditation. I think I was tip-toeing around him just in case I broke him out of it. Imagine that, snapping some old guy out of a 200-year meditation session... he would be so pissed. But then he'd probably just lean to one side and expel all that gas that had been building all those years, and he'd feel much more comfortable.

I was too freaked out at the time to get a photo. I'm telling you, it was weird. His glass box even had airholes! Gees, if he'd so much as twitched, I would've jumped a mile. But the whole time we were there, we saw not one movement.

And we still didn't know if he was real or not.

So, later, we researched.

As it turns out, we'd been staring at the real body of a monk from the temple. Only, he'd died long ago, and his body has been preserved - freakishly well - and put on display in a glass box. A glass box with airholes, dammit.

So anyway, we've since made it to Perhentian Island Besar, a relaxing tropical island. Since arriving we've done very little, and I'm quite proud of that fact. We've been pretty flat-out, and our last two weeks are crammed full of things too, so we're considering this a holiday from our holiday. A few hours ago we even found a tree snake in our room, sitting up on the bathroom door.


Don't worry - I didn't touch this one. In any case, he just sat there, all doubled up on himself like an electric cable. Oh, I want one!

Is it strange that I'm more freaked out by a dead monk than a live snake?