Journey into Full Moon country

Dark lumps of cloud gathered above my head as I crossed the border late that evening. The big sign board on my left reminded me that I was entering my home state. ‘Welcome to Kelantan in Peace’ it said. My leisurely drive took me about five hours before I reached the border. With eight people including four kids on board I had to be extra careful knowing fully well that I was on one of the most accident prone roads in the country. There is no highway in this part of the country. I have a feeling that people in Putrajaya, with four-lane highways crisscrossing their small enclave, somehow think people from this part of the country do not deserve good road system. Not while this state is living under the curse of the full moon.

The rain that had been falling for quite some time in hilly areas of Southern Kelantan took its toll on the road too. (I am saying that just figuratively – there are no tolled roads in Kelantan, that’s why its roads are still Third World standard!). The main road from Gua Musang to Kuala Krai, which is used by hundreds of thousands of Kelantanese rushing to get back to Kelantan during festive season, was completely closed due to landslide. Traffic was diverted to the less popular alternative road passing through Dabong and Jeli before one could go to Tanah Merah and Pasir Mas. Lucky for me, I drove back on Monday, way before other people did. I heard they got stuck for hours on Wednesday on the way to Kelantan because of the heavy traffic and half-closed roads. Some used the longer route travelling through LPT to Kuantan and Terengganu with the consequence of paying more for tolls and petrol. Which makes me think that every raya it is not just us celebrating it; Samy Vellu also has good reasons to enjoy the season.

The rainy season in Kelantan was still in its full steam. This year for some parts of the state the yearly flooding was more severe than usual. Excess water from Sg Golok had overflowed to low lying areas of Pasir Mas especially close to Rantau Panjang, a small town on the border of Malaysia and Thailand. Up to ten thousand people living close to Rantau Panjang had to sacrifice the comfort of home and stay at evacuation centres on the day of Raya Qurban. As usual whenever there is a disaster, there are also opportunities, especially to the most opportunistic of them all, the politicians. With general election just around the corner, here is the not-to-be missed chance to smile in front of national TV distributing goodies to flood victims, funded by other people’s money, for their own political mileage. The local daily Sinar Harian was filled with tireless UMNO leaders wading knee deep water with boat in tow distributing packed rice and canned sardines to villages. I am sure PAS leaders also cashed in on this opportunity. After all, it was a time to show that they also cared. But, their face was nowhere to be seen in the newspapers or TV. I guess their face was not handsome enough to be in the newspapers.

I did not stop over at my family house. Instead, my final destination was my mother-in-law’s house, the house which I always go back to whenever I visit Kelantan. After my parents’ death more than 5 years ago, none of my siblings decided to live in the house. Before long white ants claimed it as their own and it is now no more than a skeleton of rotten planks and rusted zinc. I felt less attached to it because it was not the house where I grew up, having spent most of my life either in rented house or boarding school.

My wife’s family house is in a village close to Rantau Panjang, about 20 km from the Thai border. Even without rain, the village is like an island, located quite far from other villages, connected by roads going through paddy fields. When it rains, it is easily surrounded by water from all corners, cut off from nearby villages. This time, the water level on the roads leading to the village was about waist deep. Overnight the roads became Venice style canals and the villagers had to use boats to connect with the rest of the world. The water level inside the kitchen was about 1 foot deep forcing my sister-in-law to move the fridge and washing machine upstairs. Still it was not that bad. They were not forced to evacuate. Thank God it did not go beyond the point of causing slight inconvenience. Quite the opposite, the kids seemed to enjoy it very much when all of a sudden open spaces around their houses were instantly turned into giant swimming pools. There was plenty of opportunity for them to practice double somersaults. For the folks, it was time to cast their nets as there was abundant supply of unsuspecting fish roaming free in the murky water tasting their new found freedom. The water levels however quickly subsided and by the morning of Raya Haji, we were able to go to the village surau without wading through the muddy water, perform the prayer and the Qurban afterwards. The sacrifice was not for me though. The cow which was supposed to be sacrificed for my children’s Aqiqah contracted foot-and-mouth disease and his life was spared.

Because the road to the village was under water, my family and I had to wait for two days for the water to subside before we could reach our final destination. We spent two nights at my sister’s house in Tanah Merah on our way to Pasir Mas. The main road from Jeli to Tanah Merah, part of the trunk road linking Perak to Kelantan, was strewn with potholes and cracks. Drivers had to reduce speed to dodge them. The traffic was made worse by JKR workers working hard to fill in the potholes in time for Pak Lah’s visit to Bukit Bunga, a small border town close to Jeli, on the second day of Raya to open a bridge crossing Sg Golok. There was plenty of opportunity for national live telecast for both prime ministers. And I think it served both politicians because while people from this side of the river would be going to the polls anytime early next year, the Thai would be doing so on Sunday.

Unlike the one proposed across the southern border, this bridge is not crooked. It cost RM9.2 million funded jointly by both sides. They appropriately named it “Jambatan Bunga” probably because it is in Bukit Bunga. It symbolises close connection between the communities living on either side of the border. Communities which share same race, religion, language and even passion for bull fighting, but are somehow separated by red line on a map. If not for unfortunate twist of history, the four muslim provinces in the south of Thailand could well have been a district of Malaysia. Nonetheless, not all is bad. They give us cheap supply of fragrant Siam rice and delicious tom yam while we sell them cheap petrol and sugar.

My visit to Pasir Mas this Raya also included a brief stop at my auntie’s house. She was not well and her children were considering whether to let her go for another skull operation to remove a recurring tumour. If they agreed, this was going to be her fourth time going under a surgeon’s knife. The doctor said at her age an operation on the head posed very high risk. But not doing it might not improve the odds either. She was lying in bed most of the time and her husband was the one entertaining us in the living room. He told me about a recent mock election in selected areas in Kelantan conducted by UMNO to gauge people’s mood in the coming general election. He was transported to and fro the polling station in a car and given free lunch. The organiser was satisfied with people’s choice and declared itself winner of the mock election. I could gauge from the conversation that to folks like him it was bread and butter issue that mattered, not abstract stuff like video clips, fair election or fight against corruption. To be realistic, I had to painfully agree with him too. To people like him, which party can build roads and who can give him subsidised fertiliser is more important than independent judiciary or transparent ACA. So those urban educated elite out there who thinks that a video clip will bring the PM down or a court case will cost a minister his political life, be prepared to swallow a bitter pill.

After a week in Kelantan, my raya homecoming was drawing to a close. More people who had been evacuated in the last few days were then allowed to go home. Visiting my childhood home village was nice but after some time I was also starting to miss my home in Kajang too. I missed the comfort of my own home, the freedom to roam on the Internet and my weekly trip to the shopping malls. When it was time to go back to Kajang, the local radio Kelantan FM announced that the two roads to KL going through Gua Musang were closed to all traffic due to landslide. I decided to believe it for my own sake although in the same programme the announcer gave a more questionable advice urging the people of Kelantan to make a change and vote for a new state government. The road closure forced me to take the longer route going through Jeli, Grik, Kuala Kangsar, Ipoh and then down south via the PLUS highway. I had no choice but to endure the heavy traffic and pay more for tolls and fuel. Samy, looks like you won again! It took me 13 hours to finally reach my home in the early hours of Monday morning.

As I was crossing the Kelantan-Perak border from Jeli to Grik, the sky over the hills was unusually clear. There were some menacing grey lumps above but I was sure they would soon be gone. The Zulhijjah full moon would be shining beautifully in the night as it had always been in the last 17 years. Many would hope dark clouds would permanently cast their shadow on the full moon. But many more would hope that the full moon would keep shining in this state for at least another five years. Driving my car negotiating the sharp corners and stomach-churning curves along the East-West trunk road, I was certain about crossing the border, but less so about which political weather my home state would have to endure.

Kajang
25 Dec 2007.