Trust me, sometimes dark alleys can be scary in the wee morning especially when one is coming back to his parked car after going to Batu Caves during Thaipusam. Image source: Photo by Pixabay from Pexels)
I don’t know why but I guess standing in a sea of rubbish was making everyone crazy.
Read Part 2 here
We continued to walk around and managed to complete the “Thaipusam shopping”. Our legs were in great pain and there was no good place to sit down – most of the place been taken up or covered in a heap of rubbish. So, I end up carrying the “big boss” for most of the remaining time and end up having hand and shoulder pain as well (ha ha).
It was not long before the time on my watch showed that it was almost 3 in the morning. But even at this hour, there was no indication of the Thaipusam crowd is getting lesser or the traffic getting better. Despite the long hours, I don’t think we managed to cover all the stalls in the temple grounds but I don’t think we wanted to walk an inch more, seeing the Thaipusam crowd.
We were tired, sweaty and hungry too. We thought of looking for any of the “24 hours Nasi Kandar Shop” for a good tuck of chicken briyani but there was none opened nearby.
The car was parked at the industrial area and at 3 in the morning; it was a long walk from the temple grounds. Just when we crossed the road, we noticed a stall serving hot roti canai, thosai and mee goreng and we have the same thought – screw the chicken briyani, we are hungry NOW! I almost forgot the number of roti canai that we eat but I recall us ordering almost non stop for the first few roti canai.
Having our stomachs full, we started to walk towards the car. Now at this time, we realised how lonely the industrial area has become. There were very few people on the road. Along the alleys, there were a group of young men hanging out in the dark. What they were doing and saying in the dark?
Most of them looking suspiciously as we walked passed them. Just one more alley before we reach the car. There were a big group of young men gathered in the alley, most of them on the motorbike, chatting seriously. When we passed the alley, all attention was on us – one of them walked towards us.
“Where you parked your car, big brother?” asked the one who walked towards us.
I wondered why this guy wanted to know where we parked the car. Immediately I started thinking the worst-case scenario – a harmless family set on by a group of young criminals, got robbed and car get hijacked. I hesitated for a microsecond before answering him – truthfully. The young man smiled and said “Ok” before returning back to his group, who appear to be nothing but a harmless group of friends hanging out after their trip to the temple.
We walked back to the car without much incident and drove back home. At 3 plus in the morning, driving back was a breeze. It was almost 5 in the morning after we reached home and had a good shower before going to sleep. It was not long before the sun came up and woke all us up.
It was indeed a tiring Thaipusam…