Do They Know it's Halloween?

Listening to: Nothing



Penang to the Klang by bus takes an average of 5 hours, assuming your coach doesn’t stop at that traffic purgatory called the KL Pudu bus station. As I had not bought my ticket a week in advance, the only Saturday ticket left was on an "SE Ekspres" bus. My favourite company “Triton” had all sold out. For those of you who had the misfortune to ride "SE", you might have some horror stories of dirty seats and insane drivers who will take an aging bus with a dead-stiff suspension close to the speed of sound, perhaps overturning a few Kancils in its wake.

On my first trip with “SE Ekspres”, the bus was barreling straight through at 110kph, even through those treacherous downhill bends before Ipoh. When it rained near KL, the driver would not slow down from 100+. The Dutchman and his girlfriend sitting at the front will have some very interesting stories to tell their pals when they got back. The second trip was much safer, but I spotted two roaches crawling on the seat in front of me. The old man seated there didn’t notice. Well, perhaps what you don’t know about won’t kill you…

Fortunately, the bus operator for yesterday’s trip could not provide an “SE Ekspres” coach, either because the old wreck had broken down or had crashed en route to the Sg. Nibong station. They offered a “Bandar Ekspres” instead which was much cleaner, although the rear suspension was pretty fucked up. The driver was safer, though it was a little unnerving when he overtook that fuel tanker in the Ipoh tunnel. It was almost 8PM when I arrived.Klang has seen a rapid growth in development during the past 6 years when I was in the States and Penang. New townships have sprung up; more McMansions, cookie-cutter terrace houses, and identical shophouses where estates used to be. A whole lotta oil palm trees had been bulldozed over for a new township, ironically named “Bandar Botanic”. Glass seemed to be the rage among architects, as many of the buildings constructed in the past 3 years appeared to use it in liberal doses, despite the tropical climate.

Sunday morning, I set off in my family's old BMW; an ageing 2nd-hand car purchased many many years ago from an uncle. In an unsuccessful quest to find the legendary Istana Mat Deros, I took a journey to neighboring Pandamaran. It had been a while since I drove the car, and because of its age it had developed several interesting traits; the fuel gauge was always at “F”, and Reverse takes several seconds to engage. At least the Straight-5 engine was still reliable, although it consumed more petrol than before…

Well, I hope you had a nice Xmas on Monday…