This was also used in a pack of education support material related to Ramadhan, and is one of my favourite short scripts, perhaps because it reminds me of a particularly magical (if physically demanding) time in my life. But of course, it only tells a tiny fraction of the story. One aspect of Bukittinggi that I found enchanting was that it is noted for being a muslim community that is also a matriarchal society, something that most non-muslims (and indeed many muslims) consider to be an oxymoron. I don't, however, and of the places through which I have travelled Bukittinggi is high on the list of places to which one day I would love to return.

Bismillahirrahmanirrahim     

I'm doing it again! Every year Ramadhan comes around, and I start dreaming about Bukittinggi. Long ago, before my beard was white, I fasted the month of Ramadhan travelling the length of Indonesia. Strictly speaking, I didn't have to fast, as travellers are exempted, like nursing mothers, the sick and the very young, those for whom the fasting may be too stressful. Ramadhan is meant to be self-discipline, not self-abuse.

Actually, I didn't start fasting in Indonesia, but in Australia. I'd been trying to get out, but the journey from Sydney to Darwin had taken the best part of a week on trains and buses, with my only distraction from the Four-X characters that surrounded me being to stare intently out of the window, at interminable vistas of ant-hills.

When I finally arrived in Darwin, I knew Ramadhan was close, but as far as I could see, there was no mosque in downtown Darwin at which to make inquiries. Despite being only a few miles from the most populous muslim country in the world, I was unlikely to hear the call to prayer echoing across the rooftops of the Northern Territory. In fact, it was probably illegal, just as it is in most towns in Britain today.

You don't really need anyone to tell you when Ramadhan starts, however. We have a giant calendar up in the sky to look at, and the months begin with the first sight of the crescent moon. So I watched the sun go down over the ocean, and looked for the moon through the tropical clouds. How different from the clear dry air of the desert when the crescent moon appears, hanging half-way across the sky, magically, and apparently out of no-where in the instant that the setting sun is extinguished. But finally, a dim, tiny crescent flickered just above the horizon through the heat haze, and another Ramadhan had begun.

Next day, I was in Bali for maghrib, the sunset prayer. In the afternoon, I'd heard the call to prayer, and naturally wandered in the direction of the mosque. As I crossed the threshold, my entry was quickly barred by several of the local muslims. "Sunni or Shia?", they said. What a sad "which foot do you kick with" welcome to the muslim world. But a burst of deliberately incomprehensible non-committal eventually seemed enough to persuade them I was O.K.. I quickly fled the smells of the city, however, and rented a beach hut to spend a few days acclimatising - I may be a muslim, but I'm also a westerner, and suffer from culture shock just like everyone else.

The journey from Bali to Bukittinggi was certainly enough to shock all but the most hardy of constitutions, two weeks of travel by jitney, donkey cart, boats, buses and trains, climaxing with what used to be known as one of the two worst bus journeys in the world. Apparently we travelled through some spectacular jungle, which I unfortunately didn't see, spending most of my time in mid-air, either about to hit my head on the roof or crash back into my steel reinforced seat. Three and a half days later, at two thirty in the morning, the bus spat me out into the streets of Bukittinggi, like a seal spat out by a killer whale. I think it was Lailat-ul-Qadr.

Standing shattered on the empty street, all I could think of was finding somewhere to wash and relax in grateful prayer at having survived, and I staggered towards the only sign of life to ask directions. Now I don't know if it had to do with my being a good foot taller than any of the locals, or my being white, or my speaking a foreign language, or my frequently saying the word for mosque with strange facial expressions and hand movements, but when the man in the storeyard saw me staggering out of the dark he looked like he'd seen a ghost. But he did take me hastily to a mosque! There, I found gleaming, newly tiled showers, and soft prayer mats, and tropical nights of effusively warm hospitality. Paradise - and there I stayed until the end of Ramadhan.

On Eid ul Fitr, when everyone eats and drinks and visits all day, as I was toured from house to house saying farewell to new found friends, it soon became hard to think of eating yet more food, having just had a month of losing the habit. My hosts would make do with a sip and a nibble, whereas I, as the honoured guest, was expected to eat and drink until I dropped. And I did. Admittedly not the best preparation for another nightmare bus trip the next day. But then, that's the journey it takes if you want to spend Ramadhan in Paradise.