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Jerai Campsite - Malaysia
It's only the second day of "the trip" -we haven't even left yet- but it has already been a massive eye opener. Yesterday's experience with Steve reminded me to keep my eyes and ears open as we head down "the road less travelled". Today reminded me that this road is usually not the most direct one, but it's full of interesting people and stories if you?re open to them.

It all started poorly.

The (free) hotel forgot to make my wake-up call this morning. I feigned being really upset when housekeeping finally knocked on the door at 10am, but the truth is I desperately needed the sleep and was quietly relieved by the bonus sleep-in. Still, there was a timeline to keep. I needed to get my errands done in KL and get me and the truck down to JB by 4-6pm to meet aikky's parents for a lift to the causeway. That was my first mistake. Timelines just are not going to work on this trip. I should have remembered that fact given how many different changes we've made to the agenda over the past 6 months. 'Flexibility' doesn't even begin to cover the easy-going attitude that this trip is going to require.

I asked one of the taxi drivers waiting outside the hotel if he knew of any car audio shops that might be open on a Sunday. After reminding me that all car audio shops are closed on Sundays (hence, my question!) he then remembered one place that was: "around SS11/7, next to the Esso station down the street from Bandar Sunway" As obscure directions go these were actually great. Three clear landmarks, except that I didn?t know any of them. You can imagine my absolute delight and reinforced belief in humanity when 45 minutes later I stumbled across a street sign that said SS11/7, was in fact next to an Esso station and damn if there wasn't a car audio shop right there waiting for me to pull in!

The guys at Pun Auto were fantastic, and 'ah pun' gave me a great price on exactly the Kenwood model that I had been shopping around for. He even threw in a free pair of tweeters for the dash board. All in all, it was more money that I wanted to spend but the fact is that we will greatly appreciate having good tunes on the long stretches of highway, and the cable we installed to plug in the iPOD directly will give us huge flexibility. (We will be posting our music list on the main site if you're interested in what we're listening to!) The couple of hours worked out well, because it gave me a chance to work in the back of the truck while they focused on the dashboard. I removed one of the seats, played around with the drawers (see the design in the vehicle section of the main site), mounted the GPS antenna, power-bar, a wind-deflector/sign for the roof rack and some of the window covers. If you ever find yourself in Malaysia and looking for a good audio shop on a Sunday I definitely would recommend Pun's at: N03"04.406 E101"36,127

I left there around 1pm, feeling great about myself for having pulled off my errands and was desperately hungry for breakfast. A quick bite next to the ice-skating rink at Sunway Parade (yes I know, and it was 37'C outside) and then hit the highway for the quick blast down to JB. Stereo cranking out my MP3 CD's and the diesel engine pulling us at a purely-non-Ferrari maximum of about 120km. That's when I foolishly thought to myself that this trip could work out just fine. The truck is not exactly "speedy", but better than the 80km in a 30year old landy and really quite comfortable.

Air-conditioning blasting, Music grooving and the occasional overtaking of as many farm-tractors-in-neutral that I could find.

That's when it all started to go wrong. Just south of Malacca the engine starting losing power, puffing out black smoke and then finally dying entirely all within about 2 minutes. Sitting on the inside fender staring at the engine on the side of the highway I thought to myself: "OK, I can almost guarantee this is not the last time you will be in this position on this trip, so be glad we're not in the middle of no-where in Laos, and try to figure out what's wrong."

There was electricity (the engine would still crank), lots of diesel and oil, the engine was hot but still safe and it wouldn't even grab when I tried to bum start it while coasting in to the road shoulder.There's only 4 factors in an engine: fuel, air, combustion and pressure, which left just one variable "pressure" as the culprit. It seems that while the car was sitting at the dealership (presumably without running for quite a while) the gasket died and now the compression was gone.

Alice and I had admired the "Rhonda" highway rescue pick-up trucks in Malaysia for a few years, but this was the first time one ever pulled over, lights flashing, to rescue me. Within two minutes they knew I wasn't driving out of there and helped to arrange a local tow truck. Half an hour later 'Ah Yong' showed up in his yellow Isuzu tow-truck and had our beautiful new Prado dangling in the air.

He wanted 500 Ringgit to tow all the way to JB, and more than that to tow back to KL. I don't know any mechanics in either place and as far as I was concerned this was the dealer's problem so I let the two of them sort it out on the phone with the clear understanding that this truck just became "un-sold" if it wasn't fixed at his expense. (luckily the final payment has not yet finished transferring up to the dealer, and I put an immediate stop-payment on it until we sort things out.) [ed-DBS screwed up and the payment was never stopped, so much for my bargaining power!]

"Ah Yong" and our two trucks limped our way to Pagoh at 40km/h where we met the mechanics "Ah Chong" and "Botak" who brought their entire posse of 5 guys and 3 tow trucks to meet us at the toll road. They seemed pretty nice, and after negotiating with the dealer on the price, etc. I gave him the list of the other things we needed done to the truck anyhow, so long as it has to stay there until I can pick it up next weekend. We'll see what he says about the gasket and how serious it is.

Meanwhile, there I sat in Pagoh at about 7pm still 150km from JB and no transport on hand. Botak called a friend who drives a taxi and an hour later "Lan" showed up in a beaten-up, broken-down, 1970?s blue taxi with the windows rolled down because "The aircon got problem". I decided later on that "Lan" is actually just a short-form nickname for his true identity which must be "wah lan", because sure enough 20 minutes into our journey that taxi was dead and I was right back where I started in another mechanic's yard, this time half-way between Pagoh and Muar, which is just slightly east of the 'middle of nowhere'. Fortunately, this guy was not only the only sarong wearing mechanic who happened to still be around at 8:30 on a Sunday night, but was also a "friend" and started to work on the car.

Twenty minutes later Lan realised that both of us were screwed for the night and started madly calling around other "friends" who would be willing to take the ang-mo to JB. Sure enough 30 minutes later "Ismail" shows up in a 1980's white (non-taxi) Proton Wira. It was still a piece of junk, but at least it had ten years on Lan's bucket of bolts and so we were off. The only problem of course being that Ismail had no gas, so we made a quick detour to the Petronas station.

Two hours can be a long time in an old Proton, with a crackly Malay radio station and a guy who speaks almost no English. So, out came my (very) broken Malay skills, and Ismail worked on his (very) broken English skills, and next thing you know we were having almost a conversation. It turns out that Ismail was a really nice man. He's got SEVEN children (the oldest is just nine years old!), 5 daughters and 2 sons. I can't imagine how tired his wife "Siti" must be, until he told me that he also had 11 brothers and sisters growing up. My other friend suddenly popped back into my head: "Wah Lan".

Ismail drives the JB to Penang "express" bus for Meridien Holidays, which he tags back and forth with a co-driver. I say "express", because Ismail explained to me that they have this "black box" in them that beeps and records if they speed. It seems that the Pavlovian experiment has worked on Ismail, because we drove the ENTIRE way to JB at exactly 100km/h. Uphill, downhill, it didn't matter. The man is a human cruise control, holding the needle exactly on 100, despite the fact that the speed limit is 110 and the farm tractors coasting in neutral were passing us on the inside lane.

Still, I felt bad as my new friend dropped my off in the middle of the traffic chaos of downtown JB. I paid him the (extortionate by Malaysian standards) 150 Ringgit, plus 50 more as a tip / gas money / buy-something-for-your-seven-kids kind of bonus. Just to put this in perspective, the agreed 150 Ringgit is equivalent to the same taxi fare I pay getting from JFK in to Manhattan, only Ismail had a 300km round trip included at 10pm on a Sunday night. Oh ya, and he's not even a taxi driver.

So, ok, to make a long story even longer - I walk in to Malaysian immigration and queue up with the ten-thousand other people heading back across the causeway on a Sunday night. Then all ten thousand of us get on to a #170 bus (80 sen fare available in the queue outside the Malaysian immigration - no previous ticket required) and we ride the 1km across the bridge. At the end of the 3 minute ride we all get out and queue up again. By the end of it all I give up on the mainstream public transport and decide to splurge on a taxi. This 5th vehicle on my way home tonight was bound to be my last one for the night, but as we raced along the (comparatively) sane, clean, speedy highways in Singapore I realised it was midnight and I never had lunch or dinner. Starving to death I asked the grumpy old uncle taxi driver to drop me off in Jalan Kayu for the most Malaysian style meal I'd had on the whole trip.

Finally, ready for home, I flagged down another taxi -my 6th car of the day- for what I though should be a quiet last few kilometres home. Sure enough though the road through another twist in the game and I met Idrus, a really nice father of two iron worker who started driving shifts in his brother's cab 6 months ago. His story was as different and enlightening as any of the others from the weekend. He's spent the past 20 years welding iron gates for big HDB government contracts. But 9 months ago the company stopped all overtime and cut all salaries across the board. His two kids are both in secondary school and want to go to university, but he knows he doesn't have the money for it. So, he started driving his brother's cab from 6pm to 2am trying to make some extra cash. It's going pretty ok he said, but the past month has been really tough because the football provides great money as people head home, but he's been up all night anytime there's a big match on to try and take advantage of the peak while he can.

Certainly, Idrus' story is not unique, but in the context of the weekend's twists and turns it served as a gentle reminder of what Steven accidentally taught me yesterday. This trip is not going to be about the sites we can see along the way, you can see those from a tour bus. No, what's going to make this trip an "adventure" is the people we'll meet and the stories they have to tell. When I think back on the other trips I've taken over the years: trekking in Nepal, hitch-hiking across the southwest, etc. it's the people I remember more than anything. I guess that was the lesson this weekend, and if it takes a broken gasket to teach that, then I guess it's worth it.

Now I really can't wait to actually get out there and start exploring