A Short Visit to Petaling Street

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It was very nice to have some time to travel alone again. It's been a while since I don't have time to travel alone and to be able to listen, to watch, to observe things inside and outside myself deeply. 

On my way to Sri Lanka I have to make a connecting flight in Kuala Lumpur, so I decided to take a look at the city before my next morning flight. I went from LCCT Airport to KL Sentral by bus only cost me 8 ringgit (about Rp. 20.000,00), and from KL Sentral subway station it is very convenient to travel around the city, it only cost me about 1 ringgit (Rp. 3.000,00) per trip.




I went to see Petronas Tower. Maybe its a must thing to see when you go to KL, but I only spent less than 5 minutes there, nothing special there for me except that remarkable skyscraper.

I took this with my phone.
I want to see people, I want to see life around KL city area. That what brought me to Petaling Street in Chinatown area.

"Penginapan Pengembara" sounds really adventurous!


My first impression there, it is very much like Pasar Baru Jakarta! It was very interesting  to see people in Petaling Street, lots of tourist and immigrants. From one day sightseeing in KL, in my opinion Kuala Lumpur is more like a mixing bowl, lots of different people there, compare to Jakarta.



Another interesting thing I found in Petaling is there are a lot of bhikkus carrying money and selling some kind of string bracelet.


I thought "Why the bhikkus selling something? I thought in their precepts they have sila that refrain them from taking money?" but the moment I have a thought like that, I realized that I was trapped in the notion and concept once again, trapped in a doctrine once again, even worse this time I was trapped in a Buddhist doctrine. True Buddha is free from all notion, free from all concept & doctrines, even the Buddhist one. True Buddhist is not a Buddhist. I felt like being in the Tanzan Zen stories.

The monk gave me the red & yellow sting bracelet.
So amid my awareness of my trapped mind, I asked the bhikku if they sell that string bracelet, and for how much. He said it's a donation and it's up to me how much I should give him.

The foot feels the foot when it feels the ground. - Buddha
Seeing bikkhus around Petaling Street is like hearing the bell of mindfulness. Breathing in, breathing out, I'm back on my feet, I realize my each breath, my each step. I'm back to my journey but I'm also arriving in each moment. I'm in the here & in the now, I'm home.

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