An unsettled wind accompanied us that late morning as we set out on our eight-hour drive from Kelantan to Kuala Lumpur. There was a sense of something unfinished, as if we had left a part of ourselves behind, as if something was soon to be lost forever.

We had spent the last five days along the Kelantan-Terengganu border, documenting a healing ritual of the mak yong folk theatre. Already at dawn our skin is dusted with salt from a sea too rough for swimming. In the evenings, we watch darkness creep over the paddy fields like a reptile returning to its lair. We wait for the hour when night becomes night—in Kelantan night arrives after Isyak prayers.

Then the music begins—the tumult of gendang drummers, the cry of the rebab spike fiddle, the incantations of the tok puteri shaman. Dancers, actors and comedians soon appear and play out the story of a prince banished from his kingdom. As undulating rhythms give way to throbbing intensity, some of the women fall into trance, dancing in wild abandon. We watch and know without saying: now is the time for healing.

• Tags: Issue 23, Malaysia, Pauline Fan