Selamat Hari Raya - Kuala Lumpur is deserted for a good reason

It's Saturday past midday, and the sun is up! Thank goodness for that because we haven't had much sun here in Malaysia the past week or so with the haze refusing to let up. "It's like that", most of us would say this time of the year - dry weather and land-clearing for the planting season taking the rap.

The city is deserted this weekend and will be for the entire week because most people are out-of-town, celebrating Aidil Fitri. The exodus began a few days ago. All tickets for public transportation were all sold out way ahead of the festival, as always.

Roads that are usually congested in and around KL are visibly less jammed up as evidenced by this combo of realtime CCTV traffic shots around the city.

Aidil Fitri or commonly-known here as Hari Raya Puasa is celebrated widely here in view of more than 60% of the 28 million population being muslims. There's a 2-day public holiday gazetted for this festival. Here in Malaysia, two days is the max allotted for any public holiday. Chinese New Year is the other festival that also comes with a 2-day public holiday.

Let me take this opportunity to wish friends and readers who celebrate this festival a Selamat Hari Raya and for the rest, happy holidays. Hotels and resorts in the country are also fully-booked as families take advantage of this long stretch of holidays to spend some quality family time. School is also out for a week.