Road Devils

Drove back to KL last night from Ipoh, which effectively was our last leg of the round Malaysia road trip for the Chinese New Year holidays. Yesterday was supposed to be a working day, but knowing how horrifying traffic on the highway could get on the last day of the holiday with KL citizens all heading back towards the city, I had already planned leave for yesterday. Traffic was still quite heavy though. Obviously quite a number of people had the same idea as I did. But still it was manageable. I managed to arrive home in just over 2 hours, with only a minor delay occuring in the stretch between Rawang and Sungai Buloh.

If there's one thing that I hate about driving on the highways in the holiday season, it is the driving habits of some selfish and inconsiderate drivers, terrorising the road as though the road was some racing circuit owned by their grandfathers. Traffic on the highway could sometimes slow down to a snail's pace during the festive seasons, and it is understandable to get exasperated at the pace when you could only manage to cover a distance of about 20km in a space of an hour, but please remember if you feel that way, EVERYONE else is feeling the same.

Some impatient drivers resort to speeding on the emergency lane, and cutting the traffic left and right just to gain what, possibly 10 minutes less on their journeys? And risking the lives of their loved ones and other innocent road users by driving dangerously? To be brutally truthful about it, I really don't give a damn if such selfish drivers were to end up under a trailer or in a deep ravine due to their thoughtless acts on the road, but it is such a pity when it ends involving their passengers and other road users.

It never fails to irk me when a driver cuts into my lane, squeezing into the space between my car and the car ahead of me, the space which I had adjudged to be a safe cruising distance when traffic is heavy but moving smoothly. All because the driver could not wait and resort to swerving left and right into any space they feel they could squeeze in to gain any measly minutes of their journey time. There was an instant when 2 cars actually squeezed into the space ahead of mine, apparently racing to get back into the fast lane after overtaking on the slower lane. There was just enough space for one car ahead of me, and when the second car just barged into my lane, almost hitting the front of my car in doing so, I had to hit the brakes rather suddenly to avoid bumping into its rear. A surge of expletives almost came out of me, and how I wished I was driving a trailer so that I could just mow down this imbecile driver. Lucky I was under a censored mode (wife and daughter were in the car), and was driving a mini MPV, or the worse could have happened.

As we reached Sungai Buloh, there was a blue Lancer Evo doing its zig zagging trick across the 3 lane highway, speeding its way pass and having little regard for the other vehicles on the road. A bus only just managed to avoid ramming into its rear as the Evo swerved from the middle lane into the slow lane with a perceived thoughtless non-chalance. "Crazy!", I thought to myself. My wife made a non-approving remark too. "Maybe he felt he's lived too long".

A few minutes later, just a few kilometres away from where the Evo overtook us, we noticed the traffic stopped almost abruptly. I had to switch lanes almost instantly to avoid the stationary cars on the middle and fast lanes ahead of me. A speedtrap maybe? Then just a few lengths ahead, I noticed a car that had spun out of control and ending up into the road divider in the middle of the road, obstructing traffic on the fast lane.

It was the same blue Lancer Evo.

Lucky the oncoming cars managed to slow down and avoided a further terrible mishap that could have involved so many other people. The Evo must have spun around across the 3 lane highways, its rear ending up ramming the divider. Looked like everyone in the car was ok, the serious damage limited to the rear of the car, and maybe to the driver's ego. It was a relief to see no one got hurt. But at the same time, it gave an inexplicable pleasure to see the stupid Evo driver ended up that way. Haha..!

Let that be a lesson to that devil.

A Welcome Break

My family and I went on a road trip this Chinese New Year, spanning between Johor in the south and Perak in the north, covering a total distance journeyed of over 1,000km. Apart from the crazy road traffic in these festive times, I've always liked going on long road trips. So many memories can be made from such long journeys, and I have quite a few stored in my collection of nostalgias, namely my road trips in New Zealand, Turkey, and Europe to name a few. Maybe I might just recount the experiences from these trips in future postings.

Anyways, I feel that the Chinese New Year break could not have come at a better time. Truth be told, I was close to the point of saturation at work. A couple of weeks ago, I made a visit to the doctor after experiencing intermittent palpitation of my heart, which had lasted for a couple of weeks up to that point. I was quite hesitant at first to made the visit, but the palpitations had begun to become too regular to my liking that I decided I had better find out if there was anything serious about it. From the ECG test I took, my heart was beating at a rate of a 100m sprinter when I was resting, and the doctor gave me some pills to get rid of the palpitations, and an advice that perhaps I was stressing myself from work too much. Suddenly, everything was put into perspective once again and I began to assess my priorities in life.

I mean, are all the troubles and stresses of work worth it if it means having to compensate my health? Having been told that I might possibly have a heart problem due to work stresses made me go into some reality check. Yeah, I have basically been working for more than 16 hours a day since early December 06 because of the company's budget and planning cycle, and to add to the excitement, my ACCA exam was scheduled in the midst of all the madness at work. I survived as I always have so far, but this time not without a little tug on my health and well being.

Perhaps I'm getting a bit old already. Perhaps cavalier moments like those I experienced in university are best not repeated in these times. There is too much stress going around me at the moment that I can do without the unnecessary ones with some proper planning. Yeah, planning. That is one characteristic I can really do with some development.

Anyways... here are some pics of Hannah and Insyirah taken while we were on our journey to Johor a few days ago. It is such a pleasure to see your kids grow and learn to do new stuffs. They are now at an age when they like to imitate behaviour and speech. There's no better therapy to stress than spending time with your child.


Hannah: "Insyirah... can you call Granny and see if she's ready to go yet? I'm tired of waiting and sitting here."
Insyirah: "Ok... I'll dial her up... lucky dad topped up my credit yesterday!".

Insyirah: "Granny? Where are you? We're waiting for you... lemme see, where are we.. we're near some fruit stalls, near the kiddies playing area..."

Insyirah: What was that Granny? The line's not very clear here... I knew I should have subscribed to Hotlink. Ok then, we'll see you here in 5 minutes ok? Our bums are getting sore from sitting too long, and I think I'm due for a nappy change too...
Hannah: Me too! I just had a big one!