The festival to celebrate the Hindu New Year was a stunning festival of color and pageantry -- tucked in a tiny little hillside village. People came from many areas in Malaysia because their parents or their grandparents had once lived in the village and worked on the tea plantations.
We arrived shortly after 11, and talked with some of the men preparing to walk on the coals. They were tending the fire, and we finally witnessed the coal-walking about 1. The participants -- including a handful of women -- had been eating only vegetables for the previous week and watching them walk across the hot coals was quite an experience. The color was impressive, and all of the women and girls were dressed with their beautiful saris. We merely stumbled across this -- and felt we were immersed in an obscure National Geographic Special. 
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