The Haunting Calls…and…well…Toilets!

I love this pose

I am in Malaysia, as mentioned before, predominately Muslim.  A number of times a day, just like now, at 7:30 pm, the haunting singing rings out over the loud speaker of the “minister” (I know that is not the right name for him but I don’t know what it is – ah it is Iman) singing the various hymns, praises, psalms – I don’t know what they call them in the Koran – verses.  Although I have no idea what it is about, it is still very magical in a haunting way.  What I want to understand though, is with the number of Mosques that exist, how do they ensure that the chanting does not compete with each other.  Like KL for instance, there are tonnes of Mosques.  So do they all coordinate so that only one gets to pipe themselves out through the loud speaker to cover the whole city or town or community.  Could you imagine each mosque doing that and competing with each other?  What a nightmare that would be.

Guess we know who won this competition

Another thing are the toilets.  There are two types of toilets you encounter here.  The regular toilet that we have and the Turkish toilet.  The Turkish toilet is the one that is just a hole in the ground with set out spots to put your feet and you just squat.  It makes sense because you don’t touch anything and it is the natural was to relieve yourself.  But in anycase, in both types of toilet, you will find everywhere here, beside them is a hose with a sprayer on it, the kind that we used to have in our sinks before the faucets became sprayers themselves.  Well I know for a fact that most of the people here use them and not toilet paper.  All the toilets have a drain in the floor and whenever you use a public toilet everywhere it is wet because of the use of these sprayers.  So you can’t sit on the toilet anyway.

Mmmm, coconut. Hey mine, none for you!

So I have been trying to figure out how they are used so as to not only clean yourself but allow you to carry on without being totally soaked.  I had some good discussion with one of the co-owners of the place I am staying at now in Langkawi.  I mean they really do make sense from a toilet paper saving point of view, but from a temperate climate (North America) point of view, I am not so sure.  In this hot tropical climate, sure, you don’t need to wear underwear and you dry quite readily, although not instantly.  But in Canada, you’d be soaked afterwards.  What a topic eh?

Hey Mum, I gotta an itch!

Certainly at first glance you would say that you would be cleaner.  But then I thought about it and if you are cleaning yourself with that water and the water is washing away the “uncleanliness” and then I walk into a toilet after someone has been in there and the water is everywhere, then that is the dirty water, No?  So then they might be cleaner but now their dirty water is left for me.  Unless of course they have then sprayed down the area afterwards.  I mean each of these rooms has drains in the floor anyway.  Every bathroom everywhere, even in people’s homes, is set up the same way.  Shower, sprayer, toilet, sink, altogether so everything can get wet.  So then you are relying on the person before you having enough “training” as to ensure the place is clean for the next person.  Anyway, this is all the thinking I have been having over this topic.  Typical me, analyse to death, but their has to be a reason many European and North Americans have veered away from this approach to the toilet.  Anyway, food for thought, or maybe the topic is all an excuse to allow me to post all these pictures of the monkeys from the Batu Caves.

Hey - what's going on up there????