For a day, my family and I ventured off from Singapore to go visit its neighboring country, Malaysia. In the afternoon, we were already tired from maneuvering our way through Malaysian markets to find food and water. Even though it was blazing hot, the water was not drinkable there! We had to go with the alternative of buying fresh mango juice instead. This would have been the perfect sweet treat in the heat. Would have been? Yeah, I didn’t even get a single sip of it! Out of nowhere, a monkey literally jumped on my dad’s shoulder to pluck it out of his grasp to have it all for himself. You know what pisses me off even more than the fact that we lost our juice? The monkey literally took one sip before leaving it to spoil under the sun! We could have had that, you stupid monkey!

Our current problem is that we were in the burning heat of Malaysia, now with no mango juice, looking for a shady place to rest. Without noticing the beauty we just walked in on, we casually walked to the first speck of shade we spotted. We were already exhausted and the heat was only making us all the more miserable. Though, I suddenly felt like I rejuvenated once I saw what was before me. There stood a massive, golden Buddha statue guarding a sacred temple hidden in the side of a mountain. Oh, what the hell, of course I went in there! I had to know what beauty waited inside.

After climbing many steps up to this gorgeous temple, I spot it at the end of the cave under angelic light seeping in through the cave’s cracks and openings. It was quite dark with stalactites and stalagmites all around us, but the temple was so brilliantly painted in bright colors so it stood out like a gem. Though, there were monkeys all over it like it was some sort of playground for them! I later found out this temple was dedicated to those monkeys and that visitors fed them as a sign of respect. I take back calling that juice-stealing monkey stupid now, I’m sorry. Overall, I left the temple in absolute awe because of its mesmerizing interior.

When I was ready to fly back home to California, I did not know what I would have to go through those next forty-eight hours. I am going to spare you the details but all I will say is that I went through the most unbearable suffering. A word of advice for everyone,

Do not accidentally drink the water in Malaysia.