Kota Bharu and its beautiful 'pelayan'

Thursday afternoon I took a flight from LCCT flying east to Kota Bharu with Air Asia. The objective of the journey was to escort my dad who can barely climb the Airbus stairs. We arrived there around 6 in the evening and my brother was waiting, and bringing us to his house in Tumpat, a small town near to the Siamese border.
I browsed my phone while I was in the car, glad to find two names, Arai and Buyeh. The last time I saw them, we were a bunch of college students who find it hard staying in a small town call Banting. Both of them took a brave decision to build up their career in Kota Bharu, the scary state with no development under the radical Islamic party, PAS; a definition courtesy of the ‘clean and reliable party’, UMNO.
At 8pm, I drove my brother’s car heading back to the capital where Arai was waiting, just in front of TESCO. I noticed the different between this TESCO to the one close to my house, underneath the big sign one can see how the capitalist works its way in an Islamic state, and they spell TESCO in Arabic. Standing in front of an expensive Toyota was my former classmate Arai who doesn’t change a bit, damn! His stomach is much smaller than mine and he must be doing really well here to afford that kind of wheels.
He ushered me to the other side of the town where my friend Buyeh were entertaining his customers at one of his two Telco shops. While I was smoking my first fag, it must have been like 20 to 30 customers uploading their call credits, a sign of a good investment. Again, I was amazed with the success of my other friend who really went ‘glocal’.
Then the interesting journey began, a journey to the other side of Kota Bharu, the extra evil place, comparatively. Eager to show what’s hip in Kota Bharu, Buyeh persuaded Arai to drive all the way to Pengkalan Chepa, to a famous café called Along. What is so great about this café? Is it the food? Is it the price? The only clue revealed by Arai was the local terminology – kedai pelayan.
Once there, I saw some expensive cars parked by the road side, all the Mercedes and Beamers, an indication that it was going to be an exclusive delegacy of rich and famous which I don’t really care as long as the two Awei’s can pay. As I walked towards the restaurant, I saw nothing extravaganza about it, the kind of simple restaurant I see every day in Bangi, Shah Alam or be it Klang for god’s sake. What was all the fuss, I started to doubt the hospitality of my two guides.
We took the seats around the corner inside the restaurants near to the place where they prepare all the odd orders such as curry mee and the pulut. I took the menu on the table and while browsing I look out at the roofless sections where all men as many as 20 of them were staring at a spot. Amazingly there is no TV or any kind of display at the place they were staring.
As I was wondering, I heard a voice of a young lady to my right, ‘makey ghapo’… Good Lord! When I turned my head I saw a girl wearing boots, the black kind of boots which the back of it are not fully covered and you can see 2 inch of skin in between 1 inch of leather. It is so complicated for me to explain but somewhat coherence Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman.
Three quarter jeans and the white t-shirts does not reveal what’s inside but you can always tell that she’s very young, maybe a little bit less than twenty. She had this very cute face that qualifies her to be in the Dove or Lux advert (hopefully my wife is ok with the explanation). Over at the counter was another young lady, much fairer from the previous and she too can be in the top 10 in any of the kampong beauty pageant. Two of them were in control of all the men, whenever they move, eyes will be at the same level to the booty. Man being man, nothing will be left unattended.
The two girls were floating from one table to another, flirting with their smiles and movement. Swear to god, I saw a man with thick moustache who must be closely related to Datuk K looking at the two ladies with a massive desire. His lips were moving in and outward rhythmically, his eyes were burning red and every time any of the girls look at him, he pulled out a seductive smile and every time he does that the three of us would be laughing to death.
Is this the best entertainment offering in KB? The answer is yes. To the wives of the husbands within that area, that café is a place of sin, relatively the same to all the brothel or massage parlors in KL. Amazingly, men can fulfill their desire at this café without even touching the two girls, just by looking at them for 3 to 4 hours all these men enter the pre-orgasm stage of which the finale will be with the legal other half at home. Sickening as it sound to others, to me it is a clear indication that the old man Nik Aziz is a successful ruler who sets a very high standard of human behavior rules. He made what is considered to be low ranking sins in KL to be the king of evilness in KB.
We then went out for a mission, a mission to proof Arai was wrong when he said there will be no girls wondering on the streets or even enjoying late night non-alcoholic drinks at the ‘warungs’. According to the digital clock on the dashboard the time was 5 minutes to midnight. We start at KB Mall; it was dark, as dark as the mosques in KL after Isyak. One road after the other, apart from the makciks at the food stalls all the souls outside were from the same gender as the three inside Arai’s Toyota. Let’s try Pasir Tumboh said Buyeh, off we went to see what’s the offering once again.
At Pasir Tumboh we came across a small stall with huge number of customer’s once again not more than one gender, male. The main attraction was Che Su the waitress, only this time Che Su is the typical Kelantanese wearing tight outfit but wearing tudung. Obviously Arai is one of the regular customer coz he was the one who told me Che Su is in her mid twenties.
The adventure then brought me back to the town, the dead town to be specific and by then it was nearly 1 a.m. and all we saw thereafter was darkness, not a single soul from our opposite gender can be seen. They managed to proof to me an interesting fact, the fact that the ladies from this side of the world does not go beyond the limit, tell that to some people and they will call it inequality.
One can argue that there are things happening behind closed doors and the degree of destructions is on the high but who cares? Nik Aziz did his job well by allowing no encouragement towards the degradation of social well being.
I wrote whatever in this article up to the paragraph above this morning and now I’m sitting at Secret Recipe in KB Mall looking at the livelier hours of the town. Yesterday was deceiving, that was the statement I can make after looking at a bunch of youngsters sitting just beside my table. These bunch is much different, same like we have in KL and too bad at daytime Nik Aziz can’t do anything to prevent the influence of western culture to our local populace.

Shahrul Azmi in Kota Bharu