Having stayed in Chinatowns wherever we have been so far we are perhaps more conscious of how cosmopolitan a country Malaysia is. There is a Malay majority but they tend to live in more rural areas and the population is made up by thirty percent Chinese and ten percent Indian, a fact i relish when meandering through the hawker stalls we tend to eat from. This also lends the religious scene even more flavour. Whereas in Europe you can get a little swamped by churches (i love this because they are regularly the most beautiful buildings in a town but Kat isn't so keen after the first thirty or so) and the cultural palate slowly stales at the homogeneity of church after church, here there is a patchwork of Hindu and Buddhist temples as well as mosques for the Islamic majority.
Every morning in KL we walk past a Buddhist temple. I love the smell of the incense sticks that are being burnt en masse. If you can't smell durian fruit or incense you aren't in Malaysia. As you enter the temple you see the spiraling incense sticks that are a couple of feet long and a foot wide at their widest point hanging above your head, you just have to watch out that the soot doesn't land on you - so far, so clean. It overwhelms not only the nose but the eyes with vibrant colours at every turn, such a vibrantly place to worship but so calm and quiet. Quietness, though, can sometimes be oppressive in a place of worship. Not here, it lends a peacefulness to the temple that draws me back again and again - not a bad quality for a religious building.
If you fancy reading non-travel stuff i have a selection of poetry and discussions on gender, identity and eco-graffiti amongst other topics at alexleclez.blogspot.com
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