Kota Bharu at Ramadan

Ramadan and the Kempetai

This is the month of Ramadan and in Kota Bharu I fall asleep and wake to the call to prayer from the surrounding mosques. Our guesthouse is close to the Kelantan state mosque and the speakers mounted on its minarets transmit by far the most prominent voice of the many that resound across the city. Sometimes the state mosque's five o'clock call and subsequent singing is followed by a broadcast of the mullah's sermon, which of course I don't understand, but the call and the singing of Koranic verses are beautiful and peaceful. I like them.

Ramadan is strictly observed in Kota Bahru. I read in the New Straits Times this morning that in addition to the religious police attached to the mosques, the city council has also fielded a team of twenty undercover inspectors this year. Their job is to keep an eye on all the Moslem eating houses in the city to ensure that none open their doors before 3.00pm and that no Moslem person is to be found eating, drinking or smoking in public before sunset.

I know Islam has had a hard time in the Western media of late and I've read that Kota Bharu is the most conservative Islamic city in Malaysia, but we've not experienced a negative sentiment from anybody in this laid back town, despite the crankiness that must surely arise from hypoglycemia induced by dawn to dusk fasting! Folks here are friendly and ready with a smile. To my surprise (there's that conditioning again) even the headscarf clad womenfolk on the town's footpaths smile a hello as they pass me.

I'm tempted to think that we're afforded such a warm reception because of our effort to dress and act according to the traditions of the folks here, but I reckon that's probably being egotistical - the people of KB are just doing what they do. I can't help but wonder though, what they feel when confronted with westerners like the girl who strode out of the guesthouse on the first Friday of Ramadan wearing nothing more than the briefest pair of shorts and a cami. They must see it a lot too, because KB is really close to the Thai border and many western tourists skip over here for a day or two to satisfy their Thai visa requirements before returning to the much more free-wheeling beaches and islands of that country.

Kota Bharu is - Warning! Hackneyed travel writer's phrase approaching! -  a vibrant juxtaposition of old and new. Gleaming towers of chrome and glass rise from city blocks dominated by shop houses with crumbling facades bedecked with tropical epiphytes that are obviously as happy on weathered concrete as they are on tree bark. The shadow of an immense telecommunications tower creeps across a park occupying the center of a roundabout. The eclipsed focal point of the park is a clocktower from a bygone age. The cars which flow ceaselessly around the park are piloted by drivers with the latest cellphones glued to their ears.

In KB I found the city blocks I'd been hoping to see in Singapore. A hybrid architecture. Part Colonial, part Malay, these buildings with their peeling pastel paintwork and rows of shutters crowned with arched breezeways manifest a sublime 1930s ambience. Once again I'm imagining British Singapore before its fall all those years ago.

Suddenly I'm hard up against that history.

We've emerged from the enclosed alleyways of the old city and find ourselves staring at a strange creamy grey building which has buttressed walls that slope inward toward the roof, giving the appearance of a truncated pyramid. As we approach we notice the unusual render. It's like a flocking, as if the walls have been sprayed with wool. The render seems painted cream, but its texture traps dust and road dirt to give the structure its odd coloration when seen from a distance. The shutters in these walls are closed and the doors are locked. The overall effect is.... strange.

The interpretive sign outside tells the history of this place. Built in 1912, from 1942 to 1945 it served as the headquarters of the Kempetai - the Japanese secret police. Kota Bahru was one of the main landing points for the Imperial Japanese army's invasion of Malaya in 1941 and this is now a war museum. Weird to just stumble on it while I was in that frame of mind...

There's another evocative type of building here - The Swiftlet Hotel. We've often wondered at the reason for the amplified twittering of birds that can be heard at various places around the city. As these recordings were often quite loud and irritating we guessed that perhaps it was to scare away roosting birds, but the truth is exactly the opposite. Birds' nest soup is a delicacy that there's obviously money to be made from, because entire buildings have been gutted and had their windows removed and speakers installed to entice the city's many flocks of swiftlets to take up residence. The birds get spacious and secure lodgings and the landlords get an easily accessible supply of nests and tenants who never complain!

Good deal for everyone except the neighbours. There are moves afoot to stamp out this kind of enterprise, as the neighbours are concerned about health issues, the smell (especially that of the better patronised hotels) and the noise from the speakers. I don't know about the first two, but I'm totally with them on the noise thing - give me the muezzin's call anyday.