Cikgu Mazlyana (my Add Maths teacher) got married today. Me together with Anep, Pikok, Jannah, Maryam, Faiz, Jaja, Apis, and Syafiq Wahab went to her house in Teluk Intan yesterday and stayed overnight there.

Prior to going there, there was a lot of suggestions for the transportation to go there. After much thinking and changing plans and changing plans again, we finally settled on meeting at Teluk Intan at around 4pm – 5pm and from there, Cikgu Mazlyana’s brother will fetch us and take us to her house. After much consideration (including the fact that the driver for the express bus from Ipoh to Teluk Intan caught a fever), I decided to go there on motorcycle.

I checked the shortest route to take to Teluk Intan by using the MapAsia MapKing2007 software. It was fairly easy, and the software’s estimated distance from my house to Teluk Intan is 87.7km. From Teluk Intan to Cikgu Mazlyana’s house took about another 20km, so that gives the total distance from my house to her house of approximately 110km. Packing all my stuffs inside my backpack and wearing suitably protective clothing for long distance ride on a bike, I set off from home at around 3.00pm.

It was raining half the way from here to Teluk Intan, and the rain greatly slows down the journey. I expected to reach Teluk Intan in 1 hour 30 minutes (average top speed: 90kph) but ended up reaching there in 2 hours. It was significantly harder to ride a bike in the rain even though I was wearing raincoat that covers my whole body from neck to feet. Water puddles on the road can cause the tyre to lose grip with the road, so I had to be extra careful and avoid water puddles on the road as best as I can. Visibility is greatly reduced too, plus the raincoat restricts my movement. My legs came close to having muscle cramps several times during the journey.

All in all, I reached Teluk Intan finally and waited for those from KL at the bus station. When they’ve arrived, we all went to Cikgu Mazlyana’s house straight away. Faiz and Hafiz arrived later that night.

The akad nikah ceremony (the ceremony where the husband take the vow from the bride’s representative to take her as his wife) was conducted that night. The Tok Kadi was quite funny and cracked some jokes along the way. Even Cikgu Mazlyana couldn’t help but laughed a little :) . The ceremony went well and they were then rightfully husband and wife, Mazlyana and Mansahbani. ( I should mention that the bridegroom is the brother of another Maths teacher in MRSM Langkawi, Cikgu Osmayani). We spent the rest of the night talking and chatting and helping around. At around 1am, I went to sleep.

The wedding next day was rather simple, mostly due to the reason that it was done in the village where the people do not really favour such fancy ceremony that will of course cause a lot of unnecessary wastage. apart from that, some aspects of how wedding is usually done in the Malay society contradict the true Islamic teachings, so those were opted out. Although it was simple, it was very nice and saved everyone a lot of headache, especially the bride and the groom. Instead of having to worry and spend a lot of time putting on thick make-up and sitting on the pelamin while people sprinkle rose water, they could move rather freely and spent the time talking and chatting with guests and actually ate with me and my friends. After all, the reason why Islam enjoins wedding ceremony is to give sedekah and proclaim to the people that the couple are now rightfully husband and wife, so that they will be no bad assumptions about them if they are seen being together.

After that, shortly after 3.15pm, I set off from Cikgu Mazlyana’s house and begin yet another 110km ride on bike. This time, I had a feeling that I was racing with rain, that not far behind me the downfall is beginning. Luckily, throughout the entire journey back home the rain didn’t catch me. It was so much more enjoyable riding without any rainfall, and that concluded my longest-distance ride on a motorcycle so far.

Oh yeah, on the way back I stopped by the roadside to take this picture :)

As usual, enjoy the pictures below :)

You can also download the full resolution (2560 x 1920) pictures here: http://rapidshare.com/files/391926829/cikgu-mazlyana-wedding-highres.zip (.zip file, 26.20MB)