Malaysia Adventure is the title of our blog…aptly named as everything so far has been an adventure….including driving. Driving here is a hoot !!!! First, you drive on the left hand side of the road. Since the steering wheel is also on the other side, it isn’t too hard to adjust as long as you remember the driver should alway be on the inside. It took about a week of driving everyday and constantly focusing on turns, not letting habit take over…. and all of a sudden I felt my brain switch. I still have the hardest time glancing to my left to check the rear-view mirror. The turn signal and wipers are also reversed.

I don’t think learning to drive on the other side would have been as hard if we were in a country such as England…things are orderly, stop lights are obeyed, rules of the road mostly adhered to, etc. The Malaysian people are the sweetest you will find anywhere on the planet but once they get behind the wheel of a car, everything changes. In the USA, when driving on a freeway or highway, you move over a lane when there are cars merging. Not here. When a car signals and needs to move over, you give them room. Not here. In the USA, you usually stay in your lane, you stop at red lights, you expect motorcycles to do the same, you use your turn signal….not here. It truly is an adventure every time you get on the road.

Typical drive to work for Heidi and me: Exit our Condo and turn right, across traffic…wait five minutes or so until there is a small crack in the traffic and you make your way across. If no crack in the traffic, you just inch your way out until they have to stop. You ignore the honking directed at you. Next we drive down our little street for about 2 kilometers til we get to the “slip road” which takes us onto the freeway. We go over 8 speed bumps (big ones). On an average day we will have at least one to three cars or motorcycle driving toward us in our lane. Never have really figured out why they are coming at us and they alway make it back to their side. We turn left onto the slip road and quickly get up to speed for cars are exiting the freeway. The slip road goes under the freeway for about a kilometer but until you memorize which lane to be in when, you might get onto a turn lane onto another street, and then you have to fight, and I mean fight your way back into the correct lane. Sometimes the painted lane-lines just disappear. If you are lucky and get in the correct lane, you enter onto the freeway. Of course, entering the freeway can never be easy. The same time you are entering, there may be a car or two that try to pass you on the left. You get on the freeway, let out a sigh of relief and decide what lane to drive in. The freeway to our school has three lanes. The left lane is the slow lane…seems to be there for expat drivers learning the system, motor scooters, and bicycles (none of which have lights or reflectors and black is the clothing color of choice) and buses stopping to pick up people. The middle lane is where I like to plant myself, if I can get an opening and move into it. I call the right hand lane the BOOH lane (Bat Out Of Hell)…I have yet to see a speed limit sign but if there is one, the drivers here are ignoring it. At anytime you may come across a vehicle broken down…doesn’t matter what lane…there isn’t much of a shoulder. We get finally get off the freeway and have a one kilometer drive to our school…only three speed bumps on this stretch. Turn onto the street in front of the school, make a u-turn and we are there. Driving sights are intersting….on the way home, Heidi and I saw one motorcycle…just a small scooter, going along the freeway at about 45 MPH…seated behind the driver was a Toro Lawn Mower. Nope, it wasn’t tied down…the driver had one hand on it balancing it as he drove…quite a talent!! We also saw a record…four people on one scooter…amazing!!! Whenever we get home we breathe a sigh of relief knowing we didn’t kill anyone, didn’t get in an accident and hopefully didn’t cause any.

Went to dinner this past weekend with Will, Allie, Sarah and Grant and two of the new teachers from our school. We wanted to show them Jalan Alor. Perhaps it was the Tiger Beer, perhaps just plain stupidity…but we all agreed to give durian a try. After we had an amazing feast of garlic prawns, butter prawns, lemon chicken, chicken satay with peanut sauce…and of course the Tiger Beer, we put our hands together and made a vow to seek out the succulent flesh of the Durian fruit. Yes, you remember a previous post where the odor was described. We looked until we found a crowded durian stand…we figured the more diners the better the fruit must be. This stand was packed, whole families there chowing down. Some had mangosteen “chasers”.
We paid 16 ringgit (about $6.00) for a very nice looking Durian. The vendor kindly opened it for us. There were a number of warning signs all which we chose to ignore….plastic gloves on the table to wear so your hands don’t smell afterwards, the actual smell of the open durian, no other expats eating. We chose to ignore all signs warning us to leave. The fruit inside is soft, like pudding. Will and I dug in, grabbed a large piece each and into our mouths it went. Talk about nasty…oh my goodness…it tastes exactly like it smells. Heidi said my eyes started watering and face started to convulse….I had to use every ounce of will-power to keep it down. Truly the worst thing I have ever eaten. Will did better than me, he even took a second bite!!! I have no idea how he did it. I’m not sure if Allie and Sarah tried any, Heidi just licked it (that was enough) You will not see Durian as a “fruit of the week” on this blog !!!! Not sure why it is called the king of fruits.

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Will, Allie, Sarah and Grant took a day trip to an elephant sanctuary. Heidi and I were unable to go as we had business to attend to at school…but it sounds like a trip we will have to do later this year. They went with few expectations…thought they would drive up, look at the animals from afar, drive back. Little did they know they would be put to work. Sarah and Will were immediately presented a machete and were asked to chop a bunch of mangos and sugar cane. Then Will was enlisted to affix a prosthetic stump onto one of the elephants…he was RIGHT there helping this elephant…no barrier, nothing. Talk about brave!!! They all got to feed the animals and even bathe them in a nearby river. And of course, they learned so much about how they are trying to save the elephants from extinction. Sarah was in heaven!!!

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