Peak Season at Work and The Paranormal

Peak Season at Work and The Paranormal

Guess where I am? I am still in the office! Though my brain has surrendered any capability to think of work at this point of time, I am here waiting for my fiancee to finish her bit of work. It is that time of year again (it seems to come around faster by the year), when we close our accounts for the year and brace ourselves for the avalanche of reports, questions, and consolidation that comes with it. Our auditors are coming in next week, and there are still a few things that need to be done. Looks like its going to be a working weekend for me.

Was in Melaka yesterday for a plant familiarisation visit. Familiarisation. Such a mouthful word. Kept having to repeat it yesterday and Wednesday when people asked me what I was doing in Melaka. Got lost for over an hour trying to find the hotel from the Simpang Ampat exit. Pusing sana, pusing sini. The route I was on was getting deserted by the minute that at some points I began to suspect if I had actually been diverted by some unseen forces. Which reminded me of a scene in the Mothman Prophecies when Richard Gere set on his way driving to Richmond which is in the south of the USA but ended up finding himself mysteriously in Point Pleasant which is way up north of the USA.

In fact, we (I was travelling with my colleague, whom conveniently is my fiancee... hehe) did come across something suspicious along the way. While I was driving along this secluded road, which turned out to lead towards Kem Askar Terendak, there appeared to be some road works on one part of the road. They closed one of the lanes on that 2-way road, and there was a tractor or something digging up a hole on the closed part of the lane. We were stopped by one of the workers looking after the traffic to allow the tractor to move to the other side of the road to pile up the soil from the dug road. There wasn't any other car on that road at that time. The time was around 10 pm.

When we were allowed to pass, I could not have driven more than a kilometre away when we came to the entrance of Kem Askar Terendak and realised that there was no way through. I asked the guard at the entrance which way to Riviera Hotel, and was told to drive a few kilometres back where we came from and take a particular turn at the junction we had passed. On our way back to the junction, I was driving slowly in anticipation of the road works that we had passed not more than 5 minutes ago. I kept on driving, and to my surprise the road works which had only been there a few minutes ago had DISAPPEARED! There was no tractor, no heap of soils on either side of the road, gone were the bright spot lights they had in the area for the works, and more significantly there were no signs that any road works had taken place there in the most recent time. It was all dark and quiet.

I looked at my fiancee and asked her whether she had seen it on our way back, and she just looked back at me silently, indicating that we do not talk about it until we were completely out of the area. It wasn't a great help either that the next 5 kilometres stretch of the road had no street lights along it and either side of the road was pitch dark. I just sped my car out of the area and was more than relieved when we finally came to the end of that dark road and back on the main road to Kota Melaka.

Moral of the story: Don't travel too late at night to places you're not familiar with. Though neither of us were significantly affected by the experience, the thought of getting lost further was beginning to worry me a little bit.

Anyhoo... looks like my fiancee's work is done. My tummy is making growling sounds already. Feel like having mee rebus tonight at Plaza Damas. Nyum.. nyumm...