Noise

Our hotel in Penang is in a pretty convenient (aka noisy) location. But in addition to the usual traffic sounds like horns honking and food delivery motorcycles racing to and fro, there are some other sounds we've had to get used to.

(Keep in mind that here in Malaysia, where it's either hot or hotter, there's no need for triple glazed windows to keep the cold out. Of course that also means that the window of our room on the 8th floor doesn't do a whole lot to keep the noise out either.)

The first thing we've had to adjust to are the regular calls to prayer that come from a very nearby mosque. A little research tells me that Muslims have 5 obligatory prayer times each day, and that each of these are announced by a muezzin from the minaret of a mosque.

It's really a lovely tradition. After all, I'm sure they could have replaced this practice with an app by now. It's kind of like the ringing of church bells to summon the faithful to services, or to announce daily prayer times in some religious traditions. I guess you could set an alarm with church bells ringing on your cell phone to notify you, but somehow I don't think it would be quite the same.

Anyway, after loudspeakers were invented about a hundred years ago, apparently these were installed on the tall minarets in mosques so the voice of the muezzin calling the faithful to prayer could more easily be heard. It's that loudspeaker part that has taken some getting used to.

However, we've been here a week now, and the calls to prayer - loudspeakers and all - are starting to fade into the background, in a pleasant sort of way. They no longer jolt us awake in the pre-dawn hours but when we hear them we know approximately what time it is.

Interesting aside: our first day here we noticed this sign on the ceiling of our hotel room.

Not being Muslim, we had no idea what it was for. But, Google to the rescue! It turns out that:

Kiblat (or Qibla) is the direction Muslims face during prayer (Salah), pointing towards the Kaaba, a cube-shaped building in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, serving as a unifying focal point for worship worldwide. It comes from an Arabic word meaning "direction" or "orientation," and in many Muslim homes and hotels (especially in Malaysia/Indonesia), a sign indicates the kiblat direction

Mystery solved, and cross cultural horizons expanded.

Then there are the party sounds. Now these we're more or less used to, having spent the better part of the last year and a half in Mexico where people love to celebrate at any opportunity.

But yesterday evening, while settling in for the night (Gerry was watching a video and I was writing this blog post), an event of some kind was just getting underway in the street a block or two from our hotel. Someone with a loudspeaker (it most definitely was not a muezzin) was doing a fabulous job of getting the crowd enthused about something.

This went on for maybe an hour, then suddenly, out of nowhere, the fireworks started. I heard it first, then saw the flashes of light in the window. I jumped out of bed and rubbernecked way to the right as well as I could against the window, in time to see the fireworks. Being set off on a street corner. In the middle of downtown. With presumably hundreds of people gathered around. Very normal in Mexico, not so much in Canada where safety regulations would have forbidden such a thing. But here we are in Malaysia, so who are we to judge?

From the picture you might think they're being set off several blocks away, but look closely and you'll see the smoke from the launch point, literally on the next block away from us.

The fireworks lasted all of a minute, after which I got back in bed thinking the night's celebrations were over. But wait!

The next thing I heard was a huge rumbling, like hundreds of motorcycles all driving by in a huge group. Out of bed I got to look out the window once more, and what did I see on the street directly below us? Yep, hundreds of motorcycles all driving by in a huge group.

Actually, it was more like a parade as it looked fairly organized, but they just kept coming. From down the side street, around the corner and out onto the main drag, hundreds of them, two abreast. Interestingly the last one looked to me like a police motorcycle, bringing up the rear with lights flashing.

Of course, this piqued my ever-present curiosity. So I turned to good ol' Google once again. I can't be sure, but I'm guessing this was maybe some kind of charity event or awareness raising campaign, culminating in an organized group ride, with a police escort to ensure safety.

I definitely don't think it was the other option Google gave me, which was that a bunch of hooligans were out causing trouble under cover of darkness. After all, calling attention to one's misdeeds with fireworks and loudspeakers generally isn't the way to avoid intervention by the authorities.

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