Being the multicultural country that it is, Malaysia is not short of culture celebrations. This week is the festival of Diwali/Deepavali. The Indian equivalent of New Year. It has been fun to watch the build up and take part in events whenever possible.
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| The first signs of the festival were the beautiful Kolam ( coloured rice pictures ) that began to spring up in the shopping malls. As you can see, peacocks dominate. |
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| Some of the intricate rice patterns. |
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| Apparently one of the must-buys at this time of the year is gold. There were lots of gold shops all filled with customers. We were not allowed to take pictures in this store so went out side and took one looking in. You get some of the sense of how busy they were. The chap sitting extreme left is a guard with a rifle across his knee. I persuaded Andrew that maybe I needed something small and expensive. We went into one shop but I think the assistant realised we were not going to pay the big bucks and paid us very little attention. |
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| Another important item is sweets, cakes and lots of them, the brighter the better it seems. Andrew had fun choosing a selection. You realise how tall we are when you see how short the locals are!!!! |
The main day for celebrations is tomorrow, Wednesday 22 Oct. It starts of with ritual cleansing and going to the temple to pray. Later in the day the feasting begins. People often invite guests. We have had two invites; one from a taxi driver... and another from one of the teachers at the school I spend at little bit of time at. We may go to Bawani's home if time allows but I am flying out tomorrow evening to Adelaide to give a hand, looking after the wee grand daughters for three weeks.
There are two areas in KL known as Little India. We had visited one, Brickfields, a number of times. On the Sunday 19th Oct. We went to the other in Jalan Masjid India. It was packed with everyone doing their final Diwali shopping! 
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