Religious tolerance is really an asset, a major one here.
Malaysia really wins the number one prize when counting the public holidays and festivities throughout the year.
As soon as we arrived, early February, we realized the amount of public holidays was going to be enormous and also very unpredictable.
First, we had the Chinese New Year. 3 full days of public holidays.
Since the Chinese are the ones who have most of the shops and trade here in Malaysia, it was pointless to go in town.
Luckily, we knew all about it from Rahmad, who owns a Fish Farm and restaurant on the river where we left "Minuit" for a few months.Other yachties were not that lucky and came back empty-handed.
The tricky thing is that there is no exact date for these festivities and/or public holidays since all of them are "dictated" by the cycle of the moon, which means that the dates change every year.
The Chinese New Year was actually following another event: The Thai Pongal, an Hindu ceremony.
The following week, on February 12, it was the turn of the muslims with "Hari Raya Pusa", celebrating the end of the Ramadan.
And here we went, 2 more holidays! The next day being friday, all shops were closed since it's the weekly day off.
For the month of February, we still have the anniversary of the sultan of Kedah (the province where we are), the anniversary of the Emperor of Jade (a Chinese event), then the celebration of the Thousand Bouddhas and, last but not least, the "Thaiputan'", an Hindu celebration which is very spectacular (some pilgrims put metal pins through their tongues and cheeks).
Then, there are the international celebrations, of course with the Valentine Day, which felt on a friday and the shops were closed anyway.
To make things even more complicated, the Malays close their shops on fridays but not the banks. The banks close on sundays.
The best way is to work it out day by day and to take into consideration that a shop might be open while the neighbouring one is closed since one might be owned by a Muslim and the other one by a Chinese.
Well, we just have to take our time and stock up while the shops are open before going sailing.

Note: No picture sorry, our old digital camera (we bought it in 1996) just decided to let us down.