Batu Angkek
Your new friends take you on the back of one of their motorbikes for a twenty minute drive through some of the most spectacular countryside you have ever seen. You turn off down a side road and then get off and walk down a path to an old traditional house. Your friends translate the large sign in front of the house. You are about to see a stone that has an amazing story.
A clan leader was visited in a dream by Sheik Ahmad, one of the early apostles of Islam in this area. This Sheik instructed him to establish a village. When the clan leader dug the hole for the first pole for his house, the place was rocked by an earthquake and for the next two weeks hot rain poured down on the site. The extended family gathered together to discuss what they should do. While they were talking a voice from the hole dug for the pole informed them that they would find a special stone in the hole and that stone was to be looked after carefully. This stone has now been treasured by his descendants for eight generations.
As you climb the steps, you pay a small sum for a ticket then enter the dark fabric-draped room. You see a young man kneeling in front of the stone reciting a prayer in Arabic. He concentrates very hard then attempts to lift a serving plate-sized disk-shaped stone smoothed from centuries of handling.
Your friends explain that the stone has mystical powers and can change its weight. If he can lift the stone, his wish will be granted. You begin to feel uncomfortable about the spiritual atmosphere in the place so you ask Jesus for protection. Then you wonder whether this is a good place for you to be at all.