Haunted routes

Mingguan Feng Shui has a special edition on ghosts and rites this month.

Here are some excerpts from the publication:

1. When making offerings of drinks and biscuits, open the package and separate them so that a greedy ghost would not make off with the whole carton of drinks or tin of biscuits. Then, the other ghosts would have nothing.

2. Do not offer these fruits - bananas, pear and pineapples - in this order together. It is an invitation to the ghosts to come over and the ghosts will become strong and more powerful.

3. When praying, don’t talk about ghosts.

4. Avoid cracking jokes about burning paper money. Don’t let children get too near the fire when burning hell notes to avoid attracting bad qi ( energy).

5. People who feel unwell or sick can still worship these wandering spirits. Women who are menstruating can pray but should refrain from holding joss sticks.

6. Don’t burn firecrackers. You will frighten the good brethen ( polite way of addressing hungry ghosts) away.

Who knows, they may be terrified that they cannot remember their way back home.

7. When making offerings to appease the wandering spirits, wear decent clothes. Women should not be in skimpy clothing but can wear skirts or long pants.

8. Avoid wearing black or grey clothes as they court illnesses or disaster.

9. Don’t kill any large insects because they may be manifestations of your departed ancestors coming for a visit. Killing them is showing them disrespect. FOUR years ago, a young couple was driving back to Kluang from Johor Baru on the rural roads.

“After 45 minutes, we came to a stretch with trees and bushes on both sides of the roads. There was no other car. Then, the music in our car stopped playing. It wasn’t from the radio but a USB flash drive. At the same time, the car’s Global Positioning System ( GPS) failed to work and we could not get any line on our handphones. We were baffled,” says Joon Meng. Then all of a sudden, the couple saw a house that seemed to appear out of nowhere.

Joon Meng recalls, “It was a wooden house decorated in a Chinese style. What’s eerie was there was a coffin outside the house. We also saw a middle- aged couple at the wake.

“I stopped and asked a man there for directions to the highway. At first, he did not answer.”

Joon Meng and his ex- girlfriend then decided to pay their respects to the deceased.

Holding joss sticks, they prayed and also asked for a safe journey home.

After that, the man gave them directions.

“He told us to drive for another 50 minutes along the road to reach the highway.

True enough, the couple found themselves back on track and on the brightly- lit highway. They breathed a sigh of relief. night, I saw a woman wearing a white baju kurung waving at me at a bus stop. I remembered my father’s words, ‘ Don’t stop for anyone’,” he says.

“But 2km later, I saw a woman, also in white, standing in the middle of the road staring at me. It was past midnight and my instincts told me it couldn’t be human as there were only palm oil estates around me. So, I accelerated my car. But before that, I flashed my headlights at the woman. She didn’t move an inch. I couldn’t swerve to the side to avoid her as I would land in the ditch as the road was narrow. I drove through her and there was no impact. But it felt like I was driving through light,” Muthu recalls.

Muthu drove on until he reached a petrol station in Gua Musang. He slept in his car outside the closed station.

Five holidaymakers were on the road at 1am when a car zoomed past them. The strange thing was that there were no passengers in the car.

Soon after that, Adrian the driver stepped on the brakes. The other passengers who was asleep were jolted awake.

Everyone was stunned into silence as they had a paranormal sighting.

“Seven apparitions were crossing the road - two elderly folks, followed by two younger adults and three children, The apparitions had a white and bluish glow about them,” says Adrian

Shocked by what they had witnessed, everyone prayed hard. Soon after, the apparitions van- ished into thin air.

“Of all my road trips, this was the creepiest. Even as I shared this story, I still shudder because it was a true experience.”

A group of friends were in their 4WD vehicle, travelling down a remote road in Sibu, Sarawak, past midnight.

“Our car was speeding. The speedometer showed 140kph but strangely, we felt like we were travelling at 20kph,” Felix reminisces.

“No matter how hard the driver stepped on the accelerator, the car seemed to move at an incredibly slow speed.”

Then came a lorry which started to honk at them.

The passengers in the car were irritated and thought the lorry driver was a road bully.

“The lorry driver gestured us to wind down our windows. The driver and his attendant then shouted to warn us. They were frantically pointing as if to indicate something on top of our vehicle,” says Felix.

“He spoke in Malay, ‘ Ada benda kat atas. Doa.’ ( There’s something on top of the car. Pray.)”

“We were petrified and started praying in our hearts. It still took some time before our car seemed to gain speed. ”

When things seemed normal, the driver asked us to look at the rear mirror.

“From a far, we saw a woman with long hair and in white standing in the middle of the road. She was staring at us. We all looked at the rear mirror but none of us dared to turn around to look back!”