Jakarta 2007 - 1st Day

I was picked up from Jakarta airport by Octavius Sutar, or Ote for short. But what a name, Octavius. Despite Malaysian kids nowdays having a name like Danial or stuff, you would not find here a Roman name like that. I read a bit and apprently, Octavii is a family of high standing in those Roman times. And may Ote also started the same this side of the Roman empire. Ote, quickly e-mail me your photo so I could put it here!

This is how I know him. While on a bus from Penang to KL, two guys behind me were talking in a diffrent accent and so I turn around and started talking. Apparently, they are two Indonesians who just finished playing a hockey tournament in USM (with their own money! they are hockey fanatics) and now, on therr way back to KL. So, we got to talking and they are going to their Malaysian friend's house but that friend won't be be home until like 8 or 9 p.m. We got to KL around 4 p.m. and I invited them to my house. What was I thinking, inviting total strangers to my house. And feed them mamak food some more! They could be 'pencopek' for god's sake! He he he.

But that's the thing with us nowdays. We run after dunia (or dunya as Shaykh Nazim says) so much that our heart becomes hardened. Oftentimes, when I pass by people walking to my housing area, it's difficult for me to stop and offer them a ride. If our heart is not soft & beutiful, I don't think it's easy for us to do charity. Amazing isn't it.

So, Ote picked us up and drove us to our guesthouse in Jalan Jaksa, Jakarta Pusat. Jaksa is like Bangkok's Khao San road on a smaller scale. Before that, we had a Sundanese lunch at a place called BenHill. That's one thing good if you know the locals, they take to good makan places. Sunda food is a bit sweet and has lots of ulam.

After checking in, we had a short rest and again, picked up by another friend, Dinna, to visit Debu.

Dinna is a founding member for yahoo group's fansya_debu, and from there, we got to e-mail each other a bit. It was really nice of her and her husband, Dhani, to drive us and give us tips about places to eat & shop in Jakarta. I think from Jakarta Pusat to Debu's house in Cilandak, Jakarta Selatan is about 40 km. But with traffic jam, took us about 1 1/2 hours to get there. Patient people they are. May the Lord reward them handsomely.

A bit about Debu. I think it was around early 2003 that I first heard Debu on Ikim's radio. They probably appeared on Astro first but since we don't have Astro I wouldn't know. They are mostly American Muslims whom moved to Indonesia some years ago and started to play music during their spare time in between giving English classes. They have spiritual guide in Shaykh Fataah (Mustafa's father) who has permission or 'ijazah' from several Sufi masters. And this is my guess: the 60's hippies movement is not a total waste. Apart from those music festivals, we have people whom travel to the East in search for spiritual wisdom. And some of them found answers from masters like Pir Vilayat Khan, Shaykh Ahmad Al Alawi, Shaykh Nazim, and from many more others.

I had been up that day since 5 a.m. and when we got to Debu, I was really tired and wasn't talking much. But I brought a Mawlid Day'bai book as a gift to them.



That's me after the giving the book to Mustafa. Mannn, I'm fat. Even Ibrahim, to my immediate left, who's from Texas is slim (Mustafa is next to Ibrahim).
We also had dinner at Debu's. What is nice is that while we all were having dinner, Mustafa and one other person were plying some instruments; sort of background music for us. Well, they do this everytime, not because we were there :)





And that's Dhani, son Ahmad Rayyan, and Dinna enjoying their dinner.



Fateh, Dinna, and other kids were playing before dinner. It's weird to hear those blonde kids speaking in perfect Indonesian accent. They need to learn Enlish! :)

All in all, it was a 'capet' and good day.

Jakarta 2007 - The Planning

Taking advantage of the long Labor Day holiday recently, and with a bit of foresight and generous credit from Hong Leong visa card, we were off to Jakarta last April 28, 2007 and came back 5 days later.

My wife has this habit of taking pictures of airport/general scenery as we land and so, here's one of Jakarta's airport. Or 'bandara' they call it, which is short form of 'bandar udara'. You will find they use lots of acronyms overthere. As opposed to my Padang trip in 2006, I did not do much planning/reading for this trip (read: I'm a good boy at the office and don't utilize company resources for personal use. And Borat will loudly say, "NOTTTTT").

I usually use http://www.virtualtourist.com/ to get to know the places I'll be visiting and so far, they are quite alright. Plus, the tips there are written by real travelers or local residents so they are not like those tourism brochures (there are however, some people who copied tips from tour sites/brochures but they are negligible).

And since the hotels in Jakarta are more expensive and we being more of 'backpacker' tourist than a Hilton/Hyatt type, I use http://www.jalanjaksa.com/ for lodging info. Google Earth also helps in giving the bearings of places in Jakarta.

So, before going there, I made a list of places to visit:
Day 1 - Saturday, 28/4/07
Shopping - Sarinah, Blok M Shopping
Shopping - Jl Surabaya, Senen

Day 2 - Sunday, 29/4/07
Istiqlal Mosque, Museum Gajah, Monas
Shopping - Tanah Abang
Go to Debu's house

Day 3 - Monday, 30/4/07 (move to Bandung for one night)
Kawah Putih Ciwidey
Shopping - Bandung

Day 4 - Tuesday, 1/5/07
Kota / Sunda Kelapa
Shopping - Mangga Dua

Day 5 - Wednesday, 2/5/07
Return KL

Many people suggested to include Anchol Dreamland (like Genting or Sunway in Malaysia but much bigger) and Taman Mini but due to limited time & budget, I did not include these two.

But alas, 'Mat Jenin' can dream but Jakarta is sooo biigggg that all my plan goes haywire. Look at the photos below and imagine about 12 million people live there.


Unlike KL, where most people lives in the surrounding areas and not in the city itself, Jakarta with length from North to South of about 70 km (estimate by a friend), people do work and live there. So the place is really congested. And I don't know any roads in KL that is 5 lanes on each side!


So, my plan all goes to haywire and only managed to do this:

Day 1 - Saturday, 28/4/07
No shopping at Sarinah, Blok M, Jalan Surabaya for antiques, or Senen for used books. But had good Sundanese lunch at BenHil (like our Star Hill, actual name is Bendungan Hilir) after airport pick up by Pak Ote. Ote, by the way, I met recently in a Nice bus from Penang to KL while coming back from Krabi trip in December 2006. Who knew short conversations in a bus could turn into friendship.

After checking into hotel, had a short rest and was picked up by Dinna, another friend whom I got to know from Yahoo group fansnya_Debu and off we went to Debu's house/zawiya in South Jakarta. It was fun to finally met some Debu members face to face and had dinner there. And it was priceless to have two Debu members playing 'gambus' (I think) as background music while having dinner (more on this later).

Day 2 - Sunday, 29/4/07
No visit to Istiqlal Mosque, Museum Gajah, or shopping at Tanah Abang as planned but we managed to go to Monument National or Monas for short. This is funny. A day before leaving for Jakarta, I sms a good and hopefully lifelong buddy Riza telling him that I'm going to Jakarta and asking if he wants anything from there. And he replied he's actually going there that afternoon itself. Wow, without previous plan, now I've got buddies to hang around with in Jakarta. So, this good Sunday morning, since Riza and his entourage was already at Monas, we went there first to join them. Waduuuhhh, besar banget tempatnya. Taxi driver drop us at a bad entrance and I had to walk about 2 kilometers to go to the actual Monas monument. And about a kilometer of those walking scented by human urine. No kidding. After that, capet sekali and terus pulang ke kamar and rehat2 aja.

Day 3 - Monday, 30/4/07
Woke up still feeling tired and drag ourselves to Stasiun Gambir (which is like only 10 minutes from Jakarta Pusat where we stayed) for train to Bandung. Highly recommended the Executive train to Bandung instead of using taxi or minivan coz with train, the scenery is truly beautiful.

Day 4 - Tuesday, 1/5/07
Went to Kawah Putih in Bandung and return to Jakarta via minivan.

Day 5 - Wednesday, 2/5/07
Again, nothing happen as planned to visit Kota / Sunda Kelapa area. But team up with Riza and visit some naqshbandi members in Jakarta. Though I'm not that good of a Muslim, it's nice to meet some people who is.

Day 6 - Thursday, 3/5/07
Yes Dorothy, there's no place like home.

A good start to Maulid 2007 session

After a long hiatus, which is occuring more frequently now :), went for zikir last night and now being Rabiul-Awal, the praising of our Prophet is a bit longer than usual. The video grab from my Lumix camera is not that good (plus I'm not sure if it's a good idea to post video here) but like most things now, you can google for mawlid videos at youtube or google video.

That's Fateh in the foreground and a familiar face at the background in blue shirt with back at the wall.

And the 'kambing' afterward is, as always, simply divine.

A day at National Zoo

These are the photos that made me wanted to buy a digital camera. Sometime ago we decided to bring Fateh to the zoo since we ourselves never been there. Judging from above, we made good timing too! By the way, that is not his 'fifth' leg.

We had a good day there. Though not knowing the schedule, we left our house early enough and made it to the few animal shows and enjoyed ourselves. The giraffes safari was nice. Seladangs too.

A good way to spend a day and it beats the mall anytime.

Bekam

It was the book 'Muhammad' by Martin Lings that made me wanted to do this. There's a reference there that during Isra & Mikraj that the angels were telling our prophet for his nation to do the bekam. So a few years later and some weeks ago I did it.

It was one of those days that I felt lazy to go to work and found an excuse for mc or whatever. By chance I went to Puchong Perdana mosque and saw this guy phone number on a poster for 'bekam'. Because he was trained by some MLM company, that apart from doing bekam they also sell herbal medicine, the equipment used seemed quite alrite; with proper sterilization on the syringe and all.

Contrary to my perception, it wasn't hurtful at all. However, to show you the 'front' photo would constitute pornography on my part.

How to have great beach holiday on the cheap?

Take a deep breath and think about your life nowadays. Now, wouldn't it be nice for a little get away on the cheap, a sort of life-recharging holiday but doesn't cost you more than a few steaks at Victoria Station. Well, you have got a friend here to tell you how. So thank the good Lord for that. He he he. And pray that he becomes a good boy.

Assuming that you live in KL like me, and no matter how much you spend time in the office, things are not gonna be that superb. So, what a bloke to do? My suggestion - go Krabi my friend, go Krabi. Now, where the heck is that? Well, I know your geography is not good. So, look at the map below.

It’s not that far from Phuket, about two hours by boat. While there are still tons of tourists in Krabi (in case you wanna people watching *wink*), it’s not over-commercialized as Phuket, hence, won’t cost you a bundle. And it’s not that far from Bukit Kayu Hitam either.

So how to go there? And how to go there on the cheap and easy.

First, to Bukit Kayu Hitam. Here I think the easiest would be to drive yourself up all the way to the Duty Free building and park your car there. I’ve parked my car here for a few days and done this for a couple of times over the years and so far, no trouble for me. And right at that parking lot, you will see a few vans and taxis to Hat Yai. Price changes but roughly a van cost you about RM15 per person and RM50 per taxi. I’m not a regular to Hat Yai (see, I’m still a good boy and with your prayers, I’ll be better) so I don’t know the details.

Twice, without a map and just by reading the sparse signboards with English characters and squiggly fonts, we managed to drive up to Hat Yai. You need your car registration to do this and you have to buy Thai insurance before leaving the Malaysian border. At the border, please make sure that you do your passports and also permit for the car coz during our first time, nobody told us and we went up to Sadao for another check and have to return back.

In Hat Yai, you could go to any travel agent and ask for a minivan to Krabi. And if you walk around the central shopping area, you wouldn’t walk more than 100m without seeing one tour agent with photos of nice girls on the wall. If I remember correctly, van to Krabi leaves at 9 am, 11 am, 1 pm, & 3 pm. Don’t take my words for these but it should be your guide for your traveling plan. If I’ve time, I would not mind staying a night in Hat Yai and leaves for Krabi the next day. I went to Krabi in early 2007 and the van cost me only RM25.

It was not a planned trip and I’ve not even read up on the place. The opportunity arose when I had to go to Penang for work trip and I thought what the heck, might as well take a few days off. So, armed with only one phone number for tour agent in Krabi (got it from ilovekrabi.com), I got on that minivan and spend four hours on the road. With fear and excitement, I thought what the hell am I doing in this van. As customary in Thailand, guys would sit at the back of the van leaving the front for ladies. This van is like a Toyota Hiace with 3 rows of seat at the back. I’m alone at the back row and another guy in front of me. Conversation was out of the picture since he was not the talking type. One German couple at the front and they don’t seem friendly too. So I was like, o mannn, don’t let my asthma got to me or else I could die here alone!

And I already intent to jama’ zuhr during asr and the van is moving patiently in the winding road with no towns in sight. What if the good Lord said, well young man, your time on earth is up and your hour of Truth has come. The feeling of excitement and anxiety when you are traveling somewhere without having a clue of the journey itself is really something. The adrenaline is different from Bungee Jumping or those ride at the theme parks. You know theme park operators will do their best to ensure safety but traveling without a Lonely Planet guide will make your heart thumps wildly. Writing this, makes me realize how I can be complacent with the journey to hereafter but will not travel anywhere on earth without a guide book.

Enough of that. After two hours leaving Hat Yai, we had a R&R stop and not having small change with me, I did not leave the van. On the return trip, I realized how foolish it was. For the place had a halal food stall and also a Surau!

I arrived in Krabi about 6 pm and have the driver talked to the agent for my drop off. Patty, the tour agent, was nice and helpful and got me a fairly new place with a/c and bathroom for the night at RM35. For halal dinner, she suggested the night market which is near the Krabi pier, about 100m from her office. I went there and start looking for the ‘Bismillah’ or any Arabic signs. But unlike Hat Yai, I could not find any. I haven’t had lunch and now another surprise! I guess unlike Hat Yai, Malaysians don’t go to Krabi much so there’s no need for the signs. After walking a while, I saw a couple (must be local) and the girl wears a tudung. So that’s the spot for me. Asked the stall what they have for dinner but it wasn’t going anywhere since I don’t speak Thai; so the easiest would be ‘chicken fried rice’ and ‘iced tea’. Cost me RM4 for those.

Apparently, Krabi is about 40% Muslims and a few traders at the night market are Muslims. There are also a few Muslim restaurants but being a small town, much smaller than Hat Yai, the restaurants open at 8 am and close 5 pm.

Things to do here are the same as those in Phuket. After all, you would take the island trips to Phi Phi and a few others like Maya Beach where they filmed Leo’s the Beach movie. The diffence is that it’s cheaper if your base is in Krabi. Krabi also has a few beaches like Ao Nang (20 minutes by car) or Rai Lay (by boat only), but accommodation could double up in those areas.

So, for less than RM50 for transportation from border and RM30 for room, you could be in another environment sipping ice cold pineapple juice and reading a book while being caressed by soft winds. And not to mention those farangs with well endowed assets.

Blog Updating

To my friend Elin & Lollies, sorry that I've not updated this for a bit. I'm feeling quite down at work at the moment and lost the appetite to write. Plus, I'm not that good of a writer or have much free time to produce good writing. But I think these people are:
http://www.bahrusshofa.blogspot.com/
http://superdervish.blogspot.com/

Incidentally, I started blogging just because I wanted to comment on Riza's blog. Never I dream that I could bring world peace or change the world by writing this.

But by golly, there was one time, not too many years ago that I dreamt of changing our Malay society. Though I don't know much, names like Che Guavara, Malcom X, Burhanuddin Helmi were always on my lips. I asked a few friends one time what they think of our society, and one replied, "What? Che Sayuti?". I knew it was hard work then and changed my hobby to playing Nintendo. And I was good at Mario Brothers too!

But dream and understanding is an elusive thing. If I may, remember those Calculus problems in Form 5? They were difficult to solve and understand at first, but after a few trials, voila, we feel a bit more confident to solve them. But trying to understand and solve the maladies of our society wasn't that simple. And at times it could be burdensome; until one time I was reading one talk/sohbet by Shaykh Nazim about the tribulations of our time and felt that I don't have to carry the burden anymore. Truly, 'understanding' is not something we could get by striving alone, it also has to be bestowed on us.

I wasn't planning to write about that but I digress. I actually wanted to congratulate our friend Phirdouse for getting married. Again. But never mind. Mabruk, mabruk.

Phi Phi Island

Went to Phi Phi island tour today. Cost me RM140.00 for the full day tour. It was worth it I think. Much better than the TAR marine park islands in Kota Kinabalu. For this tour, we went to two snorkeling places and 3 beautiful beaches including that of Maya beach; made famous from Leo DiCaprio's the beach movie. But sadly, I don't have my camera with me. The wife took it first. And this trip was not even planned. More later, now off to Thai Kickboxing match.

Krabi

Here I am in a small internet care in Krabi, South Thai. A bit more south than Phuket about 4 hours drive from Hat Yai. How did I end up here alone, out of place among the farangs (westerners) is quite simple actually. Got a few days leave to blow off and since I was in Penang for work trip, and the wife is in Hong Kong for two weeks with her mother visiting relatives there. I thought a beach excursion might be good. And been wanting to come here for sometime already. So now the chance.

After a 5 hours minivan drive from Penang to Hat Yai (RM25) and another 4 hours to here (RM25 also), I end up at the physical office of Ms. Patty from www.krabitours.com. She was helpful; got me a room with fan for RM30 per night. And tomorrow to Phi Phi island tour and dead tired now. So, sweet dreams.

A lesson in life ...

I don't know who said it first or where I got it from, but here goes ...


"Borrow money from pessimists - They don't expect it back."

An easy thing to do ...

A while back, I received e-mail mocking the Indonesian group Dewa and how its lead, Ahmad Dhani is of jewish heritage and all those stuff (as if being a Jew is bad, we forget how many great prophets are Jewish, being zionist is a different matter altogether). That kind of e-mail I only scan thorough and don't remember much details since I feel that there's malicious intent on the author instead of trying to do good.



And today I came across this article about Ahmad Dhani. Well, well, seems our friend is going places. Good for you brother and may you always be under our Master's guidance and our Lord's blessings. Free ticket ada ka?



Back to the e-mail, I can't just imagine the faces below as bad people, if anything, we want to be like moth to a flame and perish within their light ...

Nice to see such a face again

It is sooooo nice to see Shaykh Adnan's face once again. I heard he came to KL sometime during Ramadan and left yesterday.

I think I've mentioned before that I'm not a good Muslim at all. Just in case you might think otherwise (by seeing such a photo here), I do break a few ten commandments on a daily basis and not a regular on some Rukun Islam.

That apart, some aspect of my life was at the lowest low few weeks ealier and I was so much in despair that I'm ready to throw some of it away. Orang kata, kalau ikut rasa ... binasa. Had I followed my emotion, years from now friends would bump into me and take a pity that I've become a zombie and clueless in life.

And thank God for people like Shaykh Adnan! Somebody hosted him for a dinner in Tropicana last Saturday and I went there. He arrived around 9:00 pm, we prayed Isha' behind him, short zikir & sohbet afterward. And dinner with lamb, chicken, & beef. A good dinner it was; buat muka tebal and tambah dua kali.

The difference between people like Shaykh Adnan and others is that, by just being in their presence, we feel a certain aura and charisma about them. And dare I say, a certain peace comes to our troubled heart. I don't know how to put it in words but it was as if all those rough & troubled emotions in the heart are slowly being made beautiful once again.

And life has become its usual self. Thank you Sir.

Further Thoughts on the way to Work

Still on the subject of guidance, teaching, I remember our Malay peribahasa:

Kalau melentur buluh,
biarlah dari rebungnya.

And also the African proverb:

It takes the whole village to educate a child.

But how do we teach a virtue to somebody. I remember vaguely reading one of Idries Shah about a Sufi Master taking his murids on a journey and show them various examples of people persevering in their pursuits. The idea is for the murids to learn what perseverance means and keep the discipline in their own struggles. Listening about perseverance and seeing it in action is certaily two diffrent things.

We can’t just tell people to behave and everything will be fine and dandy after that. I believe this is so because within our own self, within this person that we call, for example sake, Fateh, there are various faculties at work. There are the egos, desires that try to go one way and the soul, the heart that wanna go the other way. Throughout human history, we could see this in the Yin/Yang, various facets of the Hindu gods, and even in the id, ego, super-ego of Freud. There’s a good introduction about this in a book called, appropriately, Book of Sufi Healing by Hakim Chisti.

In my own case, despite her temper, my grandma is one generous person. Whenever we go to visit some relatives, close or near, she will always bring a simple gift. Befitted orang kampung like her, the gift could be a few cans of condesed milk or a few kilos of sugar; and if she’s financially constrained, biscuits will do. And I hope to emulate her in that sense. If anything, charity is a good deed and could take away difficulties from us. May we do this more and more everyday. Aminnnn.

The Indian Bird

One thing I'm grateful in life that, though from a simple family, I grew up to like reading. The passion did not fully blossomed till I was in college but the seed was planted much earlier. Perhaps being big (a more humane way of saying that I'm fat), I did not have much choice. Football certainly out of the window. And reading engineering stuff in college was not that much fun. And I'm much more grateful that I like reading Idries Shah and his Sufi books. Somehow, may be because I grew up poor, I am not the type to quicky judge a person or a situation. This came in handy since reading Idries Shah, some of the things said are certainly way over my head. But in time, I come to understand a bit.


So, the story today is from Idries Shah's The Way of the Sufi. It is one of the few stories that for unknown reason, I really like. Hopefully you will enjoy it too. In the book, Shah wrote that the story is from Maulana Rumi.








The Indian Bird

A merchant had a bird in a cage. He was going to India, the land from which the bird came, and asked him whether he could bring anything back for him. The bird asked for his freedom, but was refused. So he asked the merchant to visit a jungle in India and announce his captivity to the free birds who were there.

The merchant did so, and no sooner had he spoken than a wild bird, just like his own, fell senseless out of a tree on to the ground. The merchant thought that this must be a relative of his own bird, and felt sad that he should have caused this death.

When he got home, the bird asked him whether he had brought good news from India. ‘No,’ said the merchant, ‘I fear that my news is bad. One of your relations collapsed and fell at my feet as soon as I mentioned your captivity.'

As soon as these words were spoken, the merchant's bird collapsed and fell to the bottom of the cage.

‘The news of his kinsman's death has killed him too,' thought the merchant. Sorrowfully he picked up the bird and put it on the window-sill. At once the bird revived and flew, to a near by tree. ‘Now you know,’ he said, ‘that what you thought was disaster was in fact good news for me. And how, the message, the suggestion how to behave in order to free myself, was transmitted to me through you, my captor.'

And he flew away, free at last.

Nasrudin's Frog Experiment

From Nasrudin@yahoo.group.com. I'll try to copy some of my favorite stories from Idries Shah books once I've time. Meanwhile:

Nasrudin trained a frog to hop everytime he said "Jump!".Then, for reasons known only to himself, he surgically removed the frog's lefthind leg."Jump!" he cried. The frog jumped. Veered badly to the left, but it jumped.
Nasrudin wrote in his journal: "Left hind leg removed; frog still jumps."And then he removed the frog's left fore leg."Jump!" he cried. The frog jumped. Almost rolled over on it's back, but itjumped.
He wrote in his journal: "Both left legs removed; frog still jumps."And then he removed the frog's right fore leg."Jump!" he cried. The frog jumped. Actually it was more of a 'scoot', but itjumped.
He wrote in his journal: "All but right hind leg removed; frog still jumps."And the he removed the frog's right hind leg."Jump!" he cried. Nothing."Jump!" he cried. The frog twitched a little, but just sat there."Jump!" he cried. The frog just looked at him pitifully.
Nasrudin wrote in his journal: "All legs removed; frog has gone deaf."

Greek Proverb

Was browsing www.deenport.com and intrigue by this Greek proverb:

“A society grows great when old men plant trees whose shade, they know they shall never sit in”.

May we have lots of those men and women.

Black Magic in Malay Society

Just a rambling off my head and not meant to be an academic study. What prompted me was something that happenned to my mom few weeks ago. After a few visit to the doctor and not seeing an improvement, coupled with strange finding of several nails tucked neatly into a papaya tree in front of our house, grandma old school intuition wanted to try different avenues. After a few visits to several experts in the area, one of which head of top 'pondok'/madrasah in Kelantan, grandma's intuition seems correct.

We hope we could be among those who would be happy with our Lord in any situation. Shaykh Nazim taught to say 'syukurillah' (sp?) when something good happens and to say 'alhamdulillah' when in difficulty. Which to be honest, when I first heard it, it sounded strange to my Malay psyche upbringing; until I heard on IKIM radio something that suggests a similar manner.

But what I want to write is more about the usage of black magic or 'sihir' in our society. What happenned was, when we visited a particular healer/'bomoh' back home, it struck me that in the short span I was there, about 5 other people was seeking her service. And most of the cars are registered outside Kelantan! Now, forget about ntv7, this is a real 'fear factor'.

And from talking to several friends about this, it seems that sihir is quite prevalent. One friend who works in banking industry, is frequenting the famous Darul Shifa now for what thought to be a 'santau'. Another, a business owner in construction industry, told several scary stories about his friends who'd been had.

I thought 'wow', the only thing we can do is to turn to Him; Helper for those who are helpless, Pillar for those who has no pillars, and Guide for those who has no guidance.

And on this blessed Friday and 2nd last day of Rabiul Awal this year, may our Lord increase our love for His most beloved servant, place us among the Righteous here and hereafter, and place us in safety. Salawat & Fatihah. Amin.

Note to Myself 1

Dear Self,

If you happen to go to any celebration for Mawlid, Bercukur Rambut, etc. please don't place the 'bunga rampai' (spelling?) together with your asthma inhaler. If you do, everytime you use the inhaler after that, you will also inhale the bunga rampai smell. It just does not feel right.

Note:
Photo of Mawlid in Janda Baik, Pahang last Tuesday.

Once upon a time in Middle Earth

Thought it was really funny and put it here. Got it from http://alaydhien.blogspot.com

Imagine if you will ...

Imagine if you will, a 30-something Malay male sitting in front of an elder in a living room somewhere in KL. The young man could sport a nice hair cut, slightly on the big size (either life has been good to him or he’s not watching his diet), casually dressed and not too sharp; and a small goatee on the chin.

Clearly the young man is spiritually inclined; though he does not seem too religious. The elder can be any venerable elder who has gone thru the good and the bad in life; somebody who's not only knowledgeable but also wise (there's distinction between the two you know).

So the young man asked, “when I look at my life, it seems that whenever I have good intention to do something, somehow I can't do it. It seems that there's bad energy or jinn or shaitan trying to pull me away. What can I do sir? May be certain Quranic practice I should do. Your guidance is much welcomed”.

After a deep breath, the elder said, “well son, there's no jinn trying to divert you, you are just one lazy son of a bitch”.

And with that, they both took a sip of the still hot Ahmad Tea (London) brought earlier.