Saturday, 25 June 2016
Last night we left Kuala Lumpur at about 8 pm and headed for Ipoh, where we planned to stay for the night just to break up the long trip to Kedah and Perlis, the 2 northern most states in Peninsula Malaysia. We arrived in Ipoh at about 10.30 pm, checked into the hostel which was a sort of a home stay with a terribly cosy room, had some drinks to unwind and then went to bed.
This morning we had breakfast at a quaint coffee shop in Ipoh called Lim Ko Pi; I had my traditional toast with butter and kaya and 2 half boiled eggs. The coffee! I'm in love. Move aside Aik Cheong coffee.
Then about a 2 hour drive to Kedah, to a place called Merbok in Lembah Bujang (Bujang Valley). The Bujang Valley is a valley that stretches across about 280 km, and the highest peak is known as Mount Jerai. Along the Bujang Valley in Kedah (then known as Kadaram), at almost 2,000 years old and built as far back as in the 5th century, are ancient Hindu and Buddhist temples at various sites.
These temples are said to be older than the Sri Vijaya empire (centred at Palembang), the Majapahit empire (centred in Java), the Sailendra empire (which built Borobudur), and even older than Angkor Wat (Kemboja / Khmer empire) which was built only in the 12th century.
We went to the Lembah Bujang Museum and saw various artefacts from the temples. Most of the inscriptions were in Sanskrit with Pallava (Tamil) script. The word "bujang" is said to be derived from the ancient Sanskrit word Bujanga meaning a serpent or a dragon. The serpent is held to be the symbol of wisdom. This was a place of wise men. After linguistic evolution Bujanga became Bujang.
There are a total of 87 archaeological sites along the Bujang Valley. Out of these, 4 have been moved to the museum site: Candi (old Sanskrit word for temple) Pendiat (said to be linguistically evolved from the word "Pandiyan" - an old Indian empire), Candi Bukit Batu Pahat (said to be one of the biggest and most important temples in the Bujang Valley), Candi Bendang Dalam and Candi Pengkalan Bujang.
Most of the temples are concentrated along the Bujang River, a tributary of Sungai Merbok, although I only saw what I suspect is Sungai Merbok Kecil, also a tributary of Sungai Merbok.
The temples are loosely divided into 2 main parts - the Vimana and Mandapa, which is pretty much the outlay of all modern Hindu temples. It was exciting to see old, ancient, eroded structures of Ganesha, Durga, Lingam, Nandhi. Feels like I'm a part of living history.
At the temple at the Kampung Sungai Mas Site (which we didn't go to), there was found a stone inscription with a Buddhist mantra which as translated reads:
"From ignorance acts accumulate; of birth acts are the cause; from knowledge no acts accumulate; through absence of acts they are not reborn." What beautiful wordings written way back when to describe the essence of Buddhism.
One more other thing of note is that the 9th Hindu Raja of Kedah converted from Hinduism to Islam and changed his name to Sultan Muzaffar Shah 1 - the first Muslim ruler of Kedah, from 1136 to 1179. This means that the Kedah sultanate is the oldest in Malaysia; Melaka Sultanate emerged later in 15th century.
And then off again! To Perlis. The northern most state in Peninsula Malaysia, bordering Thailand and beside the Straits of Malacca. Reached Kuala Perlis at about 5 pm, and went form dinner at a seafood restaurant called Hay Thien, and after dinner we watched the sun set over the Straits of Malacca. That was beautiful.
Right below where I was standing, at the shore of the straits, I saw a strange looking fish like creature using its fins to 'walk' on the mud. I sent a picture of this creature, which I suspected to be a mud skipper, to my brother who confirmed that it was a baby mud skipper. I saw evolution in motion! All those years ago the first fishes would've used their fins in the same way to walk on land. And here we are.
Then we took a drive into Kangar town, bought some groceries, drank beer and went to bed. This is the life!
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