Kal El

This photo was taken by KN's friend from the AMC. He was on his way home near Bandar Bukit Raja in Klang on June 14th 2008 at 12:30pm and saw a large crowd by the road side. Being a photography enthusiast, he captured this original image and posted in the Alpha Community Forum. Scarrryyyyy man! It was believed that the man, A Thai national who was a Bomoh and a tattooist first killed his wife before committing suicide.

As planned, we will be checking out Ibis Malioboro and checking in Rumah Mertua, somewhat 20 minutes drive away. Before checking out that morning, we walked along Malioboro Street searching for local dishes for breakfast. Since the Mall was scheduled to only open at 9:30am, we had to look for food hopefully from decent stalls along the road. There were many stalls along the road selling Bakso, Bakmi, Lumpia and Es Buah. I really wanted to try the Es Buah and sat at a table on an okay looking stall. We bought two pieces of Lumpia stuffed with quail eggs (Popiah here in Malaysia but eaten with green chili and onions here) to be consumed at the hotel room. We gambled and walked to Malioboro Mall’s food court for a real breakfast but couldn’t find anything decent but a plate of yong-tau-foo like dish.

Malioboro Street in the Morning

Malioboro Mall in the Morning

We took a cab to Rumah Mertua, a secluded yet stylish boutique hotel located 20 minutes from Malioboro Street. We found out about this place from Shah Rambling’s and fell in love with the place right away. True enough, the place was a beauty. The room was spacious, clean and quiet. The people there were friendly too. We were pleased with the staff even when we were booking a room via the Internet.

The Spacious Room at Rumah Mertua

We’ve been looking forward to try their Rijstaffel, a menu set comprising of more than 10 types of dishes served at a very reasonable price. It was like eating a buffet. Thanks again to Shah’s Ramblings for recommending.

After a real heavy lunch, we rested for a while and planned to visit Prambanan. However, since time was not on our side, we changed the plan to visit Kraton. Unfortunately, upon reaching there, we didn't quite have the chance to go in since it was almost closed. We snapped some photos around the Kraton and decided to visit the Beringharjo Market. You could get cheap batik, souvenirs and others things from this market built by the Dutch. We were warned by the cab driver (the same driver who drove us from Rumah Mertua to the Kraton) to be careful of pick pockets in the market. Upon hearing that, without thinking much, we cancelled the idea and then were taken to a batik shop called Bu Karti on Srewedani. It was raining real heavily by then (January and Februaru are rainy season in Jogja). After the Batik shopping at Bu Karti we returned to Rumah Mertua to be served with an excellent tasty Nasi Goreng Jogja dinner at the open air dining area while the rain pours real heavily. Lucky for us Jogja wasn’t affected with flood like Jakarta did at that time

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Around Rumah Mertua

Later that night we decided to go on the Hotel's tour service to Prambanan, Borobudur and Mount Merapi. So, we have to wake up early for breakfast and off we go - it'll be the peak of our visit here to Jogja!

We had a really scary experience on our first night at Rumah Mertua. the place being in the middle of nowhere (the surrounding area outside Rumah Mertua could be real eerie - many trees, very few buildings except for few small houses). I have had experienced similar 'encounters' at home home in Bukit Antarabangsa and at my dad's home in Taman Melawati where I dreamt of seeing a Pontianak/Kuntilanak standing, staring fiercely at us at the foot of the bed. The 'creature' wasn't doing anything to hurt us but was just standing there and staring with her bright saga red eyes. In all occasions I would be really loudly in my sleep, reciting verses from the Quran. Even KN who is a heavy sleeper would be startled and would be waking me up from my sleep. This time I didn;t have to tell KN what happened and we only talked about it during breakfast the next morning.

Since Abg Beruang Madu’s blog kecoh pasal citer hantu gerak-gerak perabut at the condo unit above his, I too would like to share some of my own encounters.

Entahlah, perhaps I am one of those who are prone to seeing and hearing ‘things’ from the alam angker, perhaps a gift from God the Almighty. This is especially true if I am new to a place. Memang dari kecil, as being told by my late mom, every time berubah tempat tidur, for example when staying at hotels or my relatives’ houses, I would always have trouble sleeping the first night. On many occasions as a toddler, I would be crying all night long and I would only fall asleep at the crack of dawn.

As I grow older this has somehow stopped.

But it was not the end.

I started seeing ‘them’.

My first experience was in 1993 on my very first year of college. I stayed at Section 18 Shah Alam in a PKNS apartment nearby Giant. My room, being on the third floor of the last block in the vicinity was very near a monsoon drain. In between the room and the drain was a really shady tree. Many people say that such a place is a potential breeding ground for both mosquitoes as well as those ‘things’ from the other side. I don’t know.

My bed was right beside the wooden cupboard (you’ll know how these cupboards look like if you’ve attended boarding school). On the wee hours of the morning on my very first night there, I was rudely awakened by a loud banging on the cupboard walls. It started with one very loud thud and continued with multiple banging as though someone or something was trying to get out from inside the cupboard. The funny thing was, there were three of us in the room, two on the bunk bed and I on the single bed, but it was only me who could hear the deafening bang that night.

No one in that room, until now knew what happened. I continued hearing the loud bang occasionally throughout the first month until the ‘thing’ decided to stop.

End of Part 1. To be continued…

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