Pkchukiss - Reality Wine

I don’t know about the situation in your country, but living in the little red dot has kept me safe and secure from the wonders of terror driving.

How so? If you ever got behind the wheel on the roads in Singapore, you will first notice that the cars around you are all recent models, none come from a vintage earlier than 4 years old, and purr around stealthily, so much that you will gladly purchase a house next to a major road, and yet not grumble about the sound pollution — that is if you are not Singaporean. That is because you would have become used to the sight of ancient cars coughing their way past the housing estate, and would have loved to see all those nice new cars.

For one, I still complained about the whoosh sound those cars make whenever they go past, but seeing these new cars has become a matter of fact that the moment I crossed the border to our neighbour, Malaysia, I got the culture shock of my life. There, just a few kilometres away, was a land where no old cars could ever be found, yet I was standing amidst ancient engines that belched both noise and smelly black smoke, and I was only just beginning the trip!

I plonked down on my seat behind the bus driver, whom told me that we were lucky to hitch a bus that was only 2 weeks old. However, some vandals have already gotten to the new mechanic chairs, so there were one or two seats that couldn’t lean backwards like the normal coach chairs. You would shudder to think about the state of the chairs in a few month’s time.

Since it was early in the morning, there were not many vehicles on the road. 10 am is hardly the time where you would find cars romping rampant on the highways, but it was there I witnessed the first of many driving experiences in Malaysia.

The bus driver would keep to the left side of the road, and overtake on the right lane of the dual carriageway. It sounds like what a normal person would do except that he did it without any signal lights, nor did he leave clearance space in case the vehicle in front suddenly braked. So, my heart was literally in my mouth for half the journey, since there was so little distance between the previous bumper and the next, and there was this annoying habit of drivers not checking their blind spots before performing over-taking. Luckily, the bus driver noticed, and blasted the bus’s air-horn aggressively. Whenever he did that, the entire bus would jump from their seats, and then fumed silently at the interruption of their mid-morning nap.

Meanwhile, with my mouth still throbbing (my heart was still in my mouth), he cut neatly in front of a small white hatchback, and made it into the exit ramp just in time to overtake a goods truck that was travelling extremely slowly. At least he did the correct thing by slowing the bulky bus down earlier. I really hated brake jamming, it always jarrs me, and I won’t be able to feel comfortable in my seat if the driver did that the entire journey.

Anyway, I got tired of having my heart in my mouth for the next 3 hours, so I slept through the rest of the journey, air-horn blasts and sudden swerves and all. Danger can make one extremely sleepy.

Filed under: General