Leaving the hotel late afternoon with just a little drizzle outside, I embarked on this heritage trail with a mission to complete it as outlined on the Malaysia Traveller website. With a very good dose of euphoria largely due to being in the state of transition between jobs; I even decided to wear a long dress (yes, right, a long dress to do a walking tour!) just for the fun of it. I booked the complimentary shuttle from the hotel in Bangsar to get to KL Sentral where, according to the website, is the best place to start this heritage walk. I was the only one on the shuttle to KL Sentral, since it is already close to late afternoon by the time I set off. The ride took a total of 5 mins in the minivan without the famous traffic of Kuala Lumpur.
It took me a while to find the connecting bridge to Nu Sentral from the KL Sentral train station; Google map just doesn’t show walking paths, only car roads. Once inside this modern shopping centre, the sign to the road Jln Tun Sambanthan was just around the corner. I followed the sign to get out of the building. The sky was already dark with the sound of thunders rumbling from afar. Looking down at the street from the bridge, the row of Indian style pavilion sketched alongside the road. I am now in Little India of the KL city, a section of the city that is steeped in history, and religion.
Rain poured within seconds, and I was contemplating stopping at one of the chic cafes for coffee before moving on, but decided against it, betting on it being only a quick afternoon shower. Crossing the bridge and getting down to the street level of Jln Tun Sambanthan on the opposite side, I walked past numerous traditional eateries and higher-end Indian restaurants. The familiar fragrance of typical Indian spice flooded the air.
Little India
Indian trades are predictable around the world – gold jewellery; textile stores; florists alternated along this street. The one skilled trade of Indians around the world is their tailoring. Tailor shops listing their services are also in abundance. At the clothing store, the beautiful sari and wedding dresses on display were just exquisite! There is always a catch with such out of this world fashion – you got to have a perfect figure to go with it, else all will be lost on you. Regretfully, I tear away from these dresses and pushed on.
Reaching my first landmark – a Moghul style building constructed in 1904 and statue of Swami Vivekananda, an Indian spiritual leader who visited Malaysia in 1893, and well-known for introducing Hinduism to the world. He made a famous speech in Chicago in 1893 where he shared his ideology of liberalism and integration of different faith. Staying true to the teaching of this Indian monk of a century ago, there was a banner outside the gate of the Ashram (temple) promoting a spiritual class on “Silent Chants for Ultimate Bliss”.
As I took my final picture, a clash of thunder struck over my head. It was certainly not a good idea to be in an open field when this happened, and I have no intention of tempting God, regardless of how spiritual this ground may be. I quickly moved along the road and passed by the next landmark, the bright red fountain in the middle of a roundabout. It is built in 2010 with statues of elephants with long trunks as part of the cleaning-up efforts of the government. This fountain, together with the archway at the far end of the street, and the rows of colourful Indian style pavilions were part of the make-over efforts to refresh this part of the city.
Turning around the bend of the roundabout, I was attracted by the loud Indian music and decided to stop just outside the music store. Also to take shelter from the rain, there I stood to type a couple of paragraph of this blog on my mobile phone with the music blasting over my head. Indian music is typically upbeat with the frequent holding of long notes over a strong percussion of drums and cymbals. The clear Soprano voice floated above the beats; my music teacher would certainly approve of the superior vocal techniques.
As I stood there, I realize more and more people gathered here as time passed, some munching snacks outside eateries while others are just hanging around waiting for the rain to stop. Looking around, I realized this is a street full of sights, sounds and smells. Old fashion music stores selling CDs, big black woks of overused brown oil stood at the storefront to fry Indian thosai when orders came in; and rows of brightly laced saris dotted this gay street. Across on the opposite side, there was a side lane of flower stores selling bright yellow garlands of Jasmine flowers to be used during the festivals and for the worship of Hindu gods. The cobbled walkways were brand new. Old buildings with bright coats of paint co-existed with new architecture all combined to make this part of the city bright and festive, even during rainy days!
Syrian Orthodox, Catholic, Lutheran and Methodist
Brickfields has no lack of other faiths calling this little corner of the KL city home. The Christian faith only manifested in this community through 4 different denominations – Syrian Orthodox, Catholic, Lutheran and Methodist. Each with its long history, own teachings and sizable followings, it is a wonder how much concentration there is in this little piece of land.
Up the street of Jln Tun Sambanthan 1 is the Orthodox Syrian Church’s Cathedral of St. Mary the Theotokos. The first Syrian Christians originated from 1918 at the end of the world war I, where they ventured far from their hometown of England to reach the far east for employment and new lives. Most found work in the plantations of Malaya. At end of world war II, more came to look for work following the agricultural revival in Malaysia. In 1949, the community grew large enough for the local authorities to grant them a piece of land to build the sanctuary. This church is the first Orthodox Syrian Church outside India to be built in 1958. Today, this church has a parsonage and a hostel to add to its compound, and other Orthodox Syrian churches have been established in different parts of Malaysia, serving its growing communities of new generation Malaysian faithful.
Diagonally across along Jln Sultan Abdul Samad is the Catholic Church of Our Lady of Fatima. There is a statue of St. Mary encased behind glass in a small structure along the road for worshippers to lit white candles in prayers. I have always wondered how the name Fatima was associated with the Catholic faith. Based on Wikipedia research on the origin of this name, this is a Catholic title of the Blessed Virgin Mary based on the famed Marian apparitions reported in 1917 by three shepherd children at the Cova da Iria, in Fátima, Portugal. This Catholic faith is thus an offshoot out of this famed incident from Portugal.
Up the same road not 10 mins walk is the Evangelical Lutheran Church. The sanctuary shared the same compound with another building for the Family Counselling Centre and Prayer Tower. The sprawling compound also houses a Kindergarten and several other buildings for various purposes. This church has a history of 117 years since it opened its doors in 1907. Its teaching is simply based on the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the salvation as stated in John 3:16. Lutherans in Penang, Malaysia was only 316 in numbers in 1900, and today, this church has 20 congregations, 10 outreaches and 4 institutions with 16 Pastors, 4 evangelists, and many church workers. This is a Tamil Lutheran Church that provided services in other languages in support of its 5 years growth plan.
Still along the same road past the junction of Jln Rozario is the Tamil Methodist Church. In comparison, this is a modest church with neatly lawned compound against the backdrop of those tall modern hotels surrounding KL Sentral. Modest it may look, it is still extensive in its outreach – it provides services in Tamil, English, Nepali and Telugu. It is likely that the outreach is targeted at the foreign workers from Nepal, a growing community in Malaysia as alternative sources of lower cost manpower in factories. It is not a surprise that on the church website there is an appeal on the church building funds to build a 5-storey community centre building as part of its extension for its growing congregation.
Before turning off to the right for Jalan Berhala, I noticed a compound with rows of classrooms just opposite the Catholic Church of Our Lady Fatima. It is a Catholic Chinese school, SRJK (Cina) St. Teresa. In the 1950s where Chinese schools were popular in the Far East, there would be many schools set up by missionaries for the education of the predominant Chinese communities. With modernisation and the wide-spread use of English as the official language, Chinese schools lost its popularity and most converted into English School. Apparently, time stopped here for the Malaysia education system, which resulted in much more superior Mandarin-speaking Chinese in Asia outside of China. The language remained strong and prolific among even the younger generation of Chinese Malaysian today.
Buddhism and Taoism
It would be surprising if there is no place of worship to cater to the Chinese community who can be found everywhere, and Brickfields is no exception. Up Jalan Berhala from Jln Abdul Samad lies a big establishment of the Maha Vihara Buddhist Temple. It was founded by the Sinhalese community in 1895 to provide a place of worship in their Sri Lankan Theravada tradition. Most of Sinhalese were either traders or artisans and skilled workers brought in from Ceylon by the British Administration to develop the colonial Malayan Civil Service. The Buddhist Maha Vihara was commonly known as the Brickfields Buddhist Temple for many years. Activities bustling in this compound, and I seemed to see more Chinese than other races here. The concept of Buddhism being more Chinese than Indian or other races seemed to stick somehow. The compound is nicely landscaped with a Bodhi tree growing at the centre, legendarily from a cutting taken from the sacred Bodhi tree in Anuradhapura, Sri Lanka.
Turning right and following the same route, I felt like I have entered a street out of 1950s China. The apartments along this street are distinctively Chinese, with Chinese red lanterns lacing the branches of the trees along the side of the road. It is also much more run down with broken windows and walls darkened with age, giving the whole place a very dirty look. Only a few shops were open, and they looked as though businesses are not doing well with few wares sparsely on display.
Hunting for a Taoist temple, I saw the sign Seng Hong Tokong, and the direction says to turn right into a dark and scary looking lane. My hair stood on ends as I walked quickly into the lane in search of this Jigong temple. Imagine my puzzlement and horror when I was greeted with a sight of a wreck of a car. The side of this bright yellow car was clearly battered in, so much so that there were even pieces of it on the ground. There wasn’t any visible mark of the make of the vehicle and besides the whackage on the right front light, it was actually quite a clean looking car. I was confused – was it a real wreck of a car or was it an art-piece placed there to shock people? I even half turned around to check if there was a funny video camera hidden somewhere. I just can’t get my head around this strange piece of artefact along this very dirty run-down lane. This temple seemed closed and there was a sign in Malay that looked like a danger sign. I really did not want to hang around any longer as this entire lane was giving me the creeps. I turned to fled and ran back to the safety of civilization.
Hinduism & Islam
This being Little India, it would be extremely unusual not to have a few Hindu temples around. The Sri Sakthi Vinayagar Temple can be found at the end of the Chinese section of Jalan Berhala, with its two flight of stairs leading up to the temple. The statue of the elephant god Ganesha, also known as Lord Vinayagar, sat squarely at the foot of the temple and also inside the temple. Known as the remover of obstacles and the god of the beginnings, I would hazard a guess that the early Indian immigrants were hoping to be blessed for their new beginnings in Malaysia and prayed that all their life obstacles will be removed.
Just beyond the Tamil Methodist Church along Jalan Sultan Abdul Samad is the Islamic mosque and madrassa (school) Madrasathul Gouthiyyah Surau. It is primarily a prayer hall for Fridays with its modest and unassuming buildings.
Old Town
By the time I reached this point of the heritage trail 2 hours have passed and the rain still did not let up. Carrying only a small umbrella and walking for 2 hours meant that my long dress’ wet and my shoes are already soaked through. I walked passed Old Town White Coffee, a home-grown Malaysian cafe with a wide open area where people can sit, drink coffee and watch the world go by. That fits the bill and is exactly what I needed to rest my tired feet and call it a day.
Before stepping into the cafe, I noticed shops up and down the street indicating blind massages. I noted that the walking trail write-up did say that there is a Malaysia Association of the Blind along Jln Tun Sambathan 4, and believed that these massage shops would be the livelihood of the visually handicapped in the area. I also saw a few of them walking confidently along the street, albeit with canes tapping the floor as they walked. In an area of such history and concentration of various faiths, it is comforting to know that there are people in this world who still have sight of the less fortunate living among us and did their part to make the world just a little more beautiful for all of us.
The World through Tinted Glass 
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