The Mysterious Abaya-clad Women in the Mall

Sony and I find the women behind these abayas to be both mysterious and frustrating. Mysterious because I keep wondering how they sneeze and how they drink coffee with that thing on...and how do their sunglasses not fall off their noses? At the buffet this morning a woman wearing an abaya was loading up her tray, and again, I kept asking myself, 'how are you gonna eat that and still remain the chaste mysterious stranger you want to be?'

In the shopping mall beneath the Petronas Twin Towers, I watched a gaggle of abaya-clad women with a few men in kaffias, then the women caught my eye, and and pointed at me menacingly. I quickly ducked into an outdoor store, fearing the wrath of her insulted husband who might want to chase down this infidel for shooting photos of his wife.

Not all of the city's Muslims choose to wear these black abayas, or even the headscarf. As our guide Sara told us, it's a modern place and you can wear what you want, Christian, Jew Buddhist or Muslim.