The Albatross
Saturday 18 May 2024
Guess what Malaysians do on a Saturday?
They drive their shitty cars and bikes somewhere in packs. Awoken at 2:00am by bikes roaring up the hill into the highlands. From our apartment on the 35th floor we could see and hear them coming up the valley. I get it, it’s a windy road and you want to bust out of the city, it’s cool and nothing is on the roads. This continued till we checked out at 9:00am. Lots of bikers were having breakfast in the local cafes.
It then continued all day as we did a long drive north to Penang. Huge amounts of bikes on club rides (one group doing it lying flat on there stomachs) and groups of Honda Civics with lots of plastic bits glued to the bodywork to make them faster (dunno how that works). Even a Bezza with a wing on the back the same size as the car.
Anyway, we did our normal 1 hour shifts till we hit the outskirts of Penang and made a detour to a shopping mall.
BAD DECISION.
Traffic was awful, roads were one or two lanes and lots of traffic lights. Traffic light cycles take 5 minutes in Malaysia. It took a long time to get there, and longer to get out. From the shopping mall to our apartment north of George Town was about an hour and a half. Eventually arrived 8 hours after we set out.
I was cranky, then the apartment was about 50 degrees and the aircon was like a moist fart. It took about 2 hours to get the place habitable. I must find something joyful in the morning.