We were staying at the Yeng Keng, our favourite hotel in Georgetown, when the staff mentioned that a Hindu procession, the first day of the Thaipusam festival, was going to pass by early the next morning.
We got up at 05:00 and found a balcony to watch from, but nothing seemed to be happening.
After about half an hour, the receptionist came out and apologised and said that they had mistaken the route, and the procession was going to pass a few blocks down instead.
Concerned that we had missed it, we hurried down the road, turned a corner, and then realised that we had absolutely nothing to worry about. There was no missing the Thaipusam parade. The road was filled as far as the eye could see with people and stalls and vehicles, all centred around an enormous mobile and brightly lit golden chariot.
There was no rush. The brightly lit float carrying several monks was being towed by two white bullocks, but spent most of the time stationary as the crowds passed up money in exchange for flowers and garlands, and bowls of fruit which were returned flaming and then carried reverently away.
The whole slow-moving rig was very brightly lit. I initially assumed that there was a small petrol generator inside, but as the bullocks trundled past, we could see that the chariot was powered by an industrial-size truck-mounted generator following closely behind, connected to the chariot by a long cable handled by a very stressed man frantically shouting directions to the truck driver, who couldn’t see the cable from his cab.
Another aspect of this procession is the ritual smashing of coconuts in the path of the chariot. These then need to be cleared out of the way before the bullocks can move forward. To this end, the procession contained an army of cleaning staff with brushes and sticks.
Off to one side, I was amused to see an earnest white man in a suit demonstrating a Heath-Robinson invention clearly designed to suck coconuts off the street… although possible designed by somebody who has never seen a smashed coconut. The cleaners thought it was very funny, and took lots of selfies with it.
Thaipusam is a three-day festival, book-ended by two all-night processions. These monks had already been working all night. They gave a signal. A couple of men poked the oxen with sticks, and the animals reluctantly shuffled forward a few paces. The chariot swayed. The man on the generator twitched the power cable and shouted at the truck driver. The whole procession lurched forward, and then stopped once more for another round of offerings. In another few hours, it would be daybreak and time to start the festival itself.
