Being a multicultural couple from two strong ethnic backgrounds, we’re perhaps more attuned to such things – not in a watchdog sort of way, but we’re always curious to see how everyone in and outside Canada manages (or sadly, sometimes fails) to get along. So how then does a country like Malaysia , known for its diversity, handle its sizable Chinese and Indian populations with such a firm religious and cultural backdrop already in place, where every Malay is by law born a Muslim?

Actually, having given this long preamble, I can tell you now that while we both came to Malaysia to explore this meeting of cultures, Nazma, being learned and worldly, wanted to see and experience the ethnic diversity, while I, being infantile and excited by gross things, had heard about a festival where people pierced themselves with spears and dragged heavy objects tied to hooks embedded in their backs.

Well, we both got thrown into the deep end, right from the get-go.

Thaipusam is a Hindu celebration dedicated to Muragan, son of the god Shiva, and is a time for penance, atonement, and a giving of thanks for prayers answered. Early Tamil settlers in Malaysia began the yearly ritual where now hundreds of thousands of Hindus, Malays, Chinese, and unsuspecting yokels like us flow up the 272 steps to the Batu Caves on the outskirts of Kuala Lumpur .

Many devotees bring offerings of milk, but some carry the kavadi, huge shrines on platforms decorated with garlands, tinsel, feathers and paintings of deities. The devotees may carry these shrines on their shoulders, supported by rods that poke into their flesh, or they may pull them on rollers, from an array of steel hooks piercing their back and chest. The devotees claim they feel no pain – that their faith allows them to do astonishing things. Sympathy pains rippled across my unblemished torso.

We had never seen so many people in one place before: reports later said the crowd was a million strong, and we were right in the middle of it. The sun was relentless, ripping through a clamour of white noise from countless voices; the throngs, dress and kavadi bursting with every colour imaginable, stretched out as far as my heat-addled vision could perceive; my shirt was completely soaked through: sweat from my own overworked pores and those of untold others; Nazma clutched vainly to my shoulder as the bodies pressed in from all quarters, moving us inexorably towards the yawning cave.

Everyone else knew why they were here: their singular purpose a crystal of faith; we had to remind ourselves constantly that we were here to witness something extraordinary, our own mantra against the undulating crush of humanity. The entire experience was surreal in the truest sense of the word, even transcendent; what belief wrought on the devotees, the sheer spectacle did for us.

Still, in the middle of all this, we were amazed to see hijab-wearing Malays carrying milk jugs up the steps, and Chinese businessmen coming to give thanks for a prosperous year. This wasn’t an “oddity” particular to one group of people: everyone was present and equal before the towering statue of Lord Murugan.

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We spent the next few weeks in Malaysia being mistaken for Malaysians, as we wandered through Chinatowns and Little Indias in various cities. Everything we saw told us of a peaceful coexistence, but with a few concessions. Restaurants with food unsuitable for Muslims are usually marked “non-halal”, and beer is available at any 7-11, but only to “non-Muslims”, and with a 200% tax built-in. Malaysia seems to have established the rules and conventions they need, in order to tolerate almost everything.

And yet this potentially homogenising environment hasn’t eroded anyone’s traditions; placed aside one another, each stands out in sharper relief. The latest Malay love stories, Tamil musicals, and Chinese kung-fu epics all share equal billing in the cineplexes. If anything, Malaysian society has only improved universal access to culture, and everyone accepts and partakes. While on the surface the notion of a Chinatown or Little India might seem like ghettoisation, in 21st century Malaysia it’s no more segregationist than putting the cereal and the canned goods in different aisles at the supermarket. It just means that everyone knows where to go to get good char kuay teow (fried noodles) or masala thosai.

In Georgetown on the island of Penang , we met Margaret, a Hakka Chinese woman who spoke five languages, including excellent English, as a necessity – to communicate at school (Malay), at home (Hakka), and with her friends (Cantonese, Mandarin). No one language had trumped any other; multilingualism was a concession freely made, and she was the better person for it.

Margaret told us about a tour of the town’s religious structures, all located on the appropriately named “Street of Harmony”. In the end we woke up too late, so we self-guided and found ourselves at the town’s main mosque, where the Malay at the information office led us around inside. “They believe what they believe – no problem,” he said of the Hindu temple down the street.

On past the Anglican church and the Roman Catholic cathedral, we stopped at the Chinese temple. This was no relic of the old days: still an active place of worship after over 200 years, people were bustling in and out, burning incense and offerings to Buddha and the gods of protection and prosperity. Here an old man, hobbling on his crutch, led us to each of the stations, explaining who it was we were bowing to. “Malays, Tamils, everyone comes to pray to Kuan Ti, but no one knows how to do it properly. That’s why I’m here,” he explained in Cantonese.

We’d seen little move for religious conversion or dominance in the places we’d visited – just an atmosphere of forbearance, respect and education. Peoples, far removed from their countries of origin, had managed to hold fast to their distinctiveness, and still help to create a new homeland.

On our last day in Malaysia, we found ourselves sitting next to three Tamil transgendered prostitutes, in a Malaysian greasy-spoon (we were having lunch; they were having dinner), in the middle of Chinatown, with the call to prayer wafting through the hot noontime streets from the nearby mosque, which was itself built by Bengali settlers. To call the ethnic diversity we’d encountered in Malaysia raucous wouldn’t be quite right, because it all seems to work, but at times like these, it does make you sit up and take notice. If Canada , 200 years from now, enjoys this kind of harmony, with polyglot citizens and diverse places of worship still full of the faithful, the richness and colour of Canadian “culture” will truly be something to be proud of.

With more time, gumption and stamina, we could have attempted the 9-day trek through the jungle up Mt. Tahan, towering above the canopy. We only had three days before we rejoined the rest of the clan, so time was short. Most of the first day was spent first in a bus, then on a speedboat along the river to Kuala Tahan, the little village that acts as park headquarters and sits across the river from the jungle proper.

The adventure began when we got to the hostel and the reception lady said something about how we’d have to share a dorm with a bunch of girls. Her choice of words: “You have to share with bi women”. This raised eyebrows and hopes, but sadly we were eventually conveyed to our own separate dorm room. Our bathroom was open to the outdoors and, with no netting and a 6-inch gap in the bathroom door, before long we were sharing our room with all sorts of jungle friends, all night long.

Our first foray into the jungle was a hour-long walk with our guide, Mr. Herman, and our group of 5 (2 Swedish girls, 1 Japanese girl, and us) at night to a hide (a treehouse lookout for observing wildlife) and into the forest to check out bugs etc. There was little hope for spotting anything of a decent size: the hide is only about 5 minutes walk from the posh resort some enterprising wag had decided to build right on the edge of the jungle. In fact, it seemed like half our time was spent walking through the posh resort to get to the jungle, but that’s progress. In all fairness, we did spot some deer at the hide, partaking of the salt-lick bait people have put there. During our walk we saw stick insects, scorpion holes, and learned all about leeches when the nice Japanese girl in our group felt something on her torso and made a new friend.

The next day was our full day in the jungle, beginning with a hike up to the canopy walkway as featured in all the brochures. We woke early to avoid a huge group of Chinese journalists who were in the park, sponsored by the Malaysian government in some mad bid to boost tourism. We’d heard they would be going through sometime in the morning.

The canopy walkway is a 510-meter-long rope bridge that, at its highest, snakes through the treetops 45 meters above the ground. “Stairs” are rickety aluminum ladders woven into the rope, ascending at desperate angles. As a matter of safety, only 4 people are allowed on a particular section at one time. Mind you, as most things are in Malaysia, it was all pretty regulated and well thought out, and the ropes are tested “daily”. I suppose it’d be a setback for tourism if 50 Chinese tourists plunged to their leafy deaths.

It was a grand old time for most of the way, wandering through the canopy, with nothing but birdsong and the squeak of ropes. I don’t think we spotted any animals, but if at any point we were feeling jaded, we could always just look down at the drop and things would pick up considerably. Alas, our reverie was shattered by the foreguard of the Chinese group, who came racing up behind us. For whatever reason, they were in a hurry; pretty soon the 4-person rule was tossed aside (as we were about to be) and we were being harassed by a scrum of Chinese tailgaters.

After the canopy walkway we hiked up Bukit Teresek, a hill much favoured for its nice lookout over the forest to Mt. Tahan. It was a long sweaty climb but we finally made it up. Arzoo and I brought up the rear while the others went ahead to the lookout. As we neared, we heard screaming and looked up to see the girls racing back towards us, arms flailing. We thought this was a pretty silly dance until we found out someone had pissed off some bees, apparently. Then the bees thought we were in cahoots and started for us. We all fled, limbs akimbo, to where our guide was waiting for us, where he very helpfully pulled stingers from our now-lumpy arms. Arzoo got nailed right in the eyebrow. I think I may have caught a glimpse of something faintly resembling a mountain before I met the business end of the swarm.

As we went for lunch, both Arzoo and I discovered our own little lunching leech buddies, who’d managed to get into our boots and under our socks. Sure enough, pulling them off left a little circular wound that wouldn’t stop bleeding, little anticoagulant-injecting bastards that they are.

Our afternoon was spent on the river, heading up towards a indigenous village and home of a nomadic band of natives. I was expecting something pretty circusy, like the village-cum-souvenir plazas we’d seen in Thailand, but this was something different. We happened to visit during moving day. Their previous village had had all the rustic accroutrements you’d expect: grass-roofed huts, fire pits, etc., but they’d only managed to get up a few shelters at their new place, and they seemed pretty happy to just sit around on logs and have a chat through our guide. We did get our Kodak moments when they pulled out blowpipes and we all had a go at a styrofoam target a few meters away. Then one of the older boys spotted a bird and went after it: he nailed it but apparently this bird had stamina, flying away out of range with a dart in its side.

I’d arranged with Mr Herman to go full tilt through the rapids we were due to hit on the way back to the camp, the better to douse the girls who were sitting in the back of the boat. This all went well according to plan and their waterlogged squeals echoed through the dense forest.

Once night falls, there’s not much to do other than go on a night safari; as we’d had a rough approximation the night before and didn’t feel it necessary to crash through the foliage in a 4×4, we sat at the floating restaurant and had a nice chat with Yuki, the Japanese girl whom we’d gotten to know quite well by that time. She’s got an interesting story for sure: a few more weeks on the road in Malaysia, then back to Japan to prep for a 2-year stint with an NGO, teaching accounting practices in Senegal.

The next morning we all awoke early, congregated at the bus, and swayed our way along the dirt road back to civilisation and the family, whom we were to meet in Malacca. All in all, a nice gentleman’s foray into the wilderness: decent conversation, a sporting game of blowdarts, a good amount of exertion and river-water intake, and enough creepy-crawlies to keep it from being just another walk in the park.

Turns out they’re made in a village of Orang Asli (”aborigines”) living on an island on the west coast of Malaysia. Actually they’re made by only about 6 guys, and each statue takes about a month or two to do. Apparently each of these is a character from their many folktales, as interpreted by the individual carver, so either their stories are all uniformly scary, or the sculptors are all sick sick geniuses.

In this store, one medium-sized statue, say a foot tall, could cost you over $3000 CAD, so it’s definitely a step above the usual trashy souvenirs. And if you had the money you’d pay it: the marquee piece is a tiger holding a chain: real wooden links carved from a single block of solid hardwood. We found out later that actually only one guy in the village knows how to carve the rings, and he doesn’t need the money badly enough to spend a month whittling, so not very many get made these days.

In any case, it stuck in my mind and wouldn’t go away after we’d left town. This led to a fool’s crusade across several Malaysia sultanates that spanned the rest of our time in Malaysia. Long story short, if I’ve been vague about the descriptions, and you’re wondering why I haven’t bothered including any photos, or what the big deal is anyways, it’s because we’ve ended up finding, buying and shipping 3 of these bad boys back to Vancouver, and no, we didn’t spend $3000 each. Everyone’s welcome to come over, hear the story, and draw your own conclusions.

My parents are both turning 60 this year. Dad’s birthday fell on February 26, so Farah came up with the idea of treating both of them to a trip. As relatively well-travelled as the Shivjis are, Southeast Asia remained largely unexplored, and so Kuala Lumpur became the meeting point for everyone. Only the Shivjis would come from three disparate continents to gather on a fourth!

And so it was that Mom, Dad, Farah, Arzoo and Aliya arrived at the hotel at 3am on the morning of Feb 21, the flight from Bangkok having been delayed (we thought they’d been quarantined, or that Dad had been caught with dried fruit in his pockets, since he seems to carry it wherever he goes).

By then we were quite familiar with KL, and the best places to eat and shop, so a considerable amount of time in KL was spent – what else? – shopping and eating. On their first day, Dad made a beeline for the first coconut stall he saw. And one 10-story shopping mecca boasted the craziest roller coaster any of us had ever seen.

After a few days in KL, the two “in-laws” (Arzoo and Lloyd) headed up to Taman Negara to explore what’s been billed as the world’s oldest rainforest (130million years – never touched by an ice age — Lloyd will write more about this). As the core-Shivjis are not “roughing-it” types, we appropriately took a VIP bus to Singapore. While they fought off bees and leeches, we avoided all jay-walking and consumption of bubble gum for fear of canings.

We then all reunited in the historic city of Malacca (or Melaka), allowing Lloyd and I to make a return trip to what has probably been the best eating experience of our two months: satay celup. Picture this: a bowling vat of satay sauce in the middle of your table, constantly replenished, in which you dip your choice of sticks from a huge fridge. We devoured, in total, 108 sticks and three plates of chicken, periwinkle meat, clams, shrimp, the biggest prawns we’ve ever seen, squid, tofu, bean curd skin, spinach, beef, fish balls etc. (Apparently the record for a single man is 169, and 70 for a woman set by a normal-set girl from – where else? – the US.) What enhanced the experience was the outgoing and proud owner of Capitol Satay, Mr. Low. It’s been the family business for three generations. On our first visit, upon learning we were Canadian, he immediately pulled out pictures and a business card for “Spicy Steve”. Turns out Spicy Steve is from N. Van and has a show on Shaw cable, of all things, and will be featuring our man some time in March, so watch out.

To his dismay, though, neither of us came close to beating the record. But Lloyd did plan out how he would, if he were to ever try! (Stick to the small clam/shrimp sticks, and of course avoid the bread cubes they give you for dipping–surely a rookie mistake if there ever was one.) Overall a great evening.

The next evening, and our last together as the Seven, was Dad’s 60th birthday. Arzoo’s family (ever-generous) treated us to a fine dinner at a nice hotel, which was then topped off by karaoke where even Dad participated with his own rendition of “My Way” by Sinatra.

Sadly we all had to part ways the next day after a week that just flew by too quickly. But we were so glad to have had the opportunity to be together.

After this experience-that-we-can’t-talk-about-yet, we fled to Tanah Rata in the Cameron Highlands, a Banff-like little town in the hills where temperatures hover around a positively orgasmic 20°C, and taking a shower isn’t this hopelessly futile errand, since I instantly burst into sweat as soon as I step out of the stall. A one-street town, the kind we love: no foreign subway or evil taxi-ripoffs to worry about.

The thing to do here is go for treks/walks into the lush surrounds. The local folklore, however, includes a fellow named Jim Thompson who, after introducing the world to the beauty of Thai silk, decided to go for a stroll in the Highlands and promptly vanished. Not wanting to enjoy the same fate, and being inexcusably lazy, we did none of this, and instead spent four days gorging ourselves on “steamboats”. You’ve probably had this under a different name before. The largish Chinese community here seems to have made this the thing to do in town. You pay per person, and they bring out a huge pile of vegetables and raw meats, and a big pot of soup on a gas burner. As the soup roils away, you cook your meat in it; afterwards and during you can drink the soupy goodness and fish for those random food particles you lost during the cooking process. They do it with flare here: our first burner burst into flames and they had to give us a new one.

We did manage to go out to the tea plantations for which the area is known, from back when the British were kicking around. They still produce some pretty good tea, as Nazma the tea junkie will attest to. We’re so high up that the tops of the beautiful green hills are shrouded in cloud and mist all day long.

This being a Muslim country, it’s a bit hard to get good bacon these days, though there’s no shortage of attempts to provide. Here’s the latest: beef bacon, a greasy stringy pseudojerky mess.