Ramadan in Malaysia, part 1 : One way ticket to Paradise

July 2016

Ramadan – Islamic holy month, a month of physical and spiritual purification, a month of intense prayers to bring the faithful closer to god, a month of fasting to gain a better understanding and greater compassion towards the deprived, a month of donations and feeding the hungry. During a holy month of Ramadan Muslims all over the world abstain from bodily pleasures including eating and drinking during daylight hours – from dawn to sunset.

Satwa in Dubai. Waiting for the fast to break

During Ramadan, as I know it, the buzz of town slows down and even stands still. The working hours are shorter, some people don’t work at all. Almost all restaurants, cafes and bars are closed as are small businesses. Many guest workers, especially those working for establishments that close down, take a vacation during that month and go home for their annual visit. The streets are almost deserted. Nothing much happens – during daylight hours.

But once the sun sets the town comes to life – all squares, streets, restaurants, cafes fill up as Muslims break their fast. The nightly feast begins. Night after night. For the whole month. Eid al-Fitr marks the end of Ramadan. It is a 3-day long celebration. It is also a public holiday in Dubai.

Most of Dubai non-Muslim expats, including myself, like that period of purification and are even looking forward to it. No traffic jams, in fact, no traffic at all. Empty streets, empty malls. Peace and quiet. The best of times.

Satwa in Dubai. The fast break begins

But if you’re visiting a Muslim country during Ramadan, things may be slightly different. Exactly the same things that residents appreciate tourists may find somewhat challenging. The empty town, empty malls, restaurants closed, no eating or drinking publicly. Nothing happens. Very, very sleepy town.

It was only a week or two after I had arrived in Malaysia that I realized Ramadan was approaching and that Malaysia is a Muslim country. What a bad timing – for a tourist like myself and even more so for my friend coming for a visit. What to do. I expected the same procedures as in Dubai. But … surprise, surprise .. the life in both Kuala Lumpur and Penang went on as usual. Hadn’t I known about Ramadan I would have never even noticed. All restaurants, bars, coffee shops and even street stalls were in full swing. Oh well, a different country different custom. Ramadan in Malaysia has no bearing on tourists. I thought.

Muslim family celebrating Hari Raya in Borneo

Ramadan was ending and so was our KL leg of the trip. It was time to leave KL for Borneo and Kutching. From there we planned to travel on land to Brunei visiting as many places as we could on the way. But things didn’t work out as planned. For at the same time as we were ready to travel so were the ‘millions’ of KL Muslims. Most KL Muslim workers come from Borneo and they were all going home to their families to celebrate Eid al-Fitr, or as Malaysians call it – Hari Raya. All plane seats to Kutching or any other larger town in Borneo were sold out weeks before.

No Kutching for us and no Borneo. We had to get to Brunei somehow – in time for the flight my friend booked taking her back to Sweden, but for now, we had to improvise. My travel companion was dreaming of paradise beaches and sea. So we looked at the map and went to Port Dickson instead.

Port Dickson

According to Google Maps, Port Dickson is a lovely coastal town with lovely beaches only one hour drive away from Kuala Lumpur – and even less from the airport (we wanted to be near the airport in case we found a couple of seats to Borneo). Due to its proximity to the capital I expected PD (Malaysians love to shorten names) to be a weekend getaway for Kuala Lumpurians, the Hamptons of Malaysia. I couldn’t be more wrong.

It took us the whole day to make the trip of fewer than 100 kilometers. Official travel information turned out to be 100% inaccurate. In addition, the huge numbers 12.20 p.m. printed on the tickets were not the expected departure time but the ticket purchase time (huh???) so we missed the train.

The only beach company, Crabs, crabs, crabs

When we finally got to our beach resort paradise in anticipation of a great evening with a breathtaking sunset and a cocktail in the pool we were greeted by a dull, gray and almost deserted place. White sandy beaches were nowhere to be seen. Nor were any weekend guests. With an exception of two hotels that were booked, one was luckily ours, the rest of them were vacant.

We spend hours and hours walking the not so stroll friendly beaches looking for some kind of life but, other than armies of tiny sand crabs, found none.

Then the luck struck. I found two (literally) last tickets to Borneo. So we packed up again and left for a place that (apparently) nobody else wanted to visit called …

Bintulu

One could see right away that Bintulu isn’t any poor fishing village somewhere in the jungle of Borneo but a town on the rise. Proper streets and street lights. Newly built houses. Fancy cars. Bintulu is a town with money. I have later learned that both oil and gas reserves were discovered just off the coast. I addition, as in so many places on Borneo, the oil palm plantations and all form of oil palm processing are also expanding in the city contributing to the booming economy.

There is also a large Western expat community an hour drive from the city living on or nearby vessels they work on. Visitors to the city are business people. Only a few tourists come here – they were practically none during our visit. On another hand, the town was shut down due to ongoing Hari Raya celebrations.

Celebrating couple

Even though the Muslims are in minority, one could feel the celebratory vibe everywhere in town. Celebrating families were all dressed in their Sunday best and family members wore matching outfits. Joy, happiness and big smiles from ear to ear adding to the festive atmosphere. The icing on the cake is the tradition of open houses. Anyone is welcome, including you and I. Unfortunately I missed the opportunity of celebrating with locals on their own premises. The tradition of ‘open houses’ is unique for Malaysia of which I didn’t know. To this day I feel such a disappointment for missing this opportunity and regret not doing my research better.

continue to part 2