Smashing coconuts by hurling them into the road in the path of the chariot is supposed to bring good luck. This part of the Thaipusam celebration is particularly popular with Chinese Malaysians young and old, who appeared from nowhere with great big grins on their faces each time a heap of coconuts was poured out.

In Penang, apparently, the coconut smashing is huge. While there were only a few thousand coconuts made available in Kuala Lumpur, a temple priest told me that in Penang they truck in hundreds of thousands of them.