by: john paul low
“I don’t feel good; she’s never late. I know something’s happened!” he intoned, as he inserted the ignition key and buttoned up his black Kevlar riding jacket. “You all wait here, I’ll go and look for her.”
Steve Chia, the ever-helpful president of SRMC, volunteered to go along with him but Skyyeo declined the offer. “You take care of the group but message or call me if she comes in.”
As the minutes ticked by, the tension became more unbearable. We could see that Sky was feeling jittery and already his tensed facial expression was awashed with perspiration. “Leave your handphone on,” added Steve as the metallic turquoise Beemer took off northwards from the Ayer Keroh R and R before heading south to Pagoh, our last stop. Kelly, Sky’s wife, and their 7-month-old Chris could be anywhere along the North-South Highway at the moment, but where?
Our group of nine bikers, with three riding two-up, backed by a Malaysian-registered Nissan driven by Kelly, had left the Esso Geylang Patah petrol station at 0805 hrs in high spirits. It was drizzling a little, but nothing that the StormRiders couldn’t handle especially when Kelly had graciously extended the her car boot to store our luggage. Murphy who had signed up on the spot as a Stormer, was riding two-up with Florence and he had deposited his large Givi top-box in the boot. Who wouldn’t, given the generosity of Sky and Kelly. I dumped my Bagster tankbag and suggested that Chris (Suzuki 650) did the same.
It was baby Chris’s third ride in the Nissan, with the Stormers; his first being the trip to Tasik Cini last year when he was just three months old. I had met baby Chris on my last ride to Batu Pahat; the ever-smiling and gregarious Chris took to every Stormer like a fish to water, relishing every ‘oohs-and-aarhs’ uttered by us. Kelly, a Malaysian and a nurse at the National University Hospital, Singapore, blended in well with everyone, ever-ready to serve.
The eight bikers and their pillions settled down for an uncomfortable wait for news from Sky; we prayed for good news: perhaps the car had stalled, or run out of petrol. On the other hand, it could have run into a traffic jam, especially with reports of a landslide along the NS Highway two days earlier. Troubling thoughts played havoc with our imagination. On the way to Ayer Keroh, we had seen the mangled wreckage of trailers and a Land Rover ignominously committed to the side of the tarmac. In one case, several recovery crew were hard at work. Intermitten drizzle and the ‘balek-kampong’ rush had added to the chaos and unfortunate statistics.
But we were in no rush. We had our hotel rooms booked at the Nova by Kelly and with the ‘Kongsi-
Raya’ spirit in everyone of us, we were looking forward to two days of glorious shopping and perhaps a haircut and wash.
“The car’s here,” someone alerted us. I looked up and noticed that the front registration plate had been almost ripped off! As it ambled closer to where we were standing, the four tyres seemed caked in mud and grass. That’s strange, I thought. Worse was to come; the front bumper was out of alignment and a signal light was hanging loose outside its socket. The front and rear passenger doors were bashed in and the door handle was jammed …. but that’s the side where baby Chris was always strapped into his seat!
As Kelly stepped unsteadily out of the Nissan, a message was immediately relayed to Sky. She was still in control but we could see that she was in a mild state of shock and unnerved by the ordeal she had undergone.
The car had skidded shortly after we left Pagoh and because she was right behind us, there was no way anyone of us could have been aware of the mishap. Her handphone … ? Yes, Sky had tried many times to reach her but there was no response and she had not called. Stranger than fiction, you may agree.
“I don’t know what happened. I wasn’t travelling fast. The car skidded and I tried to avoid colliding into the vehicle in front, so I steered away,” a badly-shaken Kelly explained.
The Nissan ended up in a grassy ditch, but tried as she could, she just couldn’t get the spinning wheels out of the mud. Several motorists stopped to help but it was in vain. Fortunately, a passing lorry stopped and towed the battered car out of the quagmire. Both mother and child escaped unscathed much to the relief of all of us. Sky couldn’t have been more thankful to the one above who must have been keeping watch.
Baby Chris wailed for all he was worth when he found himself all alone in the car and had to be picked up from the driver’s side because the passenger door was stuck. But with lots of cooing and purring from all present, he was back to his usual self with his ominpresent smile for everyone! He’s a tough one, this Chris.
A splintered tree branch had impaled itself into the engine compartment and was obstructing the radiator cooling fan. Steve and another Stormer took a few minutes to remove the intruding branch with tools from David Ong’s Goldwing and a Victorinox Swiss Army knife from Chris (Suzuki 650).
An much-anguished but relieved Sky rode into the petrol station 20 minutes later and was reconciled with his family, glad that his most precious possessions were still in one piece. Kelly was not in the proper frame of mind to continue escorting our bikers to KL. Sky suggested they get the car checked in Malacca while Steve would take on the responsibility of leading our group to KL. Later, they decided that it was best that they return home to JB. “Her father will give her hell,” he messaged me.
After a short briefing by Steve we headed for KL’s Sungei Besi toll and into the city’s notorious traffic snarls, heat, dust and exhaust pollutants. We ate lunch at a cosy but non-airconditioned restaurant with Vincent Low (Beemer RT) displaying his skill in selecting fish for a curry and an assam dish. At RM 17 per head, lunch was a steal.
KL with its one-way streets is confusing not only to the uninitiated but also to experienced bikers alike. It took us a while to locate The Nova at Jalan Alor, a notorious district known for its sleazy goings-on after sunset – ask any taxi driver. Finally, Steve decided it was in everyone’s interest to pay a taxi driver to lead us to our sojourn. Once we were comfortably settled in, it was shopping time at the upmarket Lot 10 and the more down-to-earth Bukit Bintang Plaza. A haircut and wash here can cost RM 45-65, so David Ong suggested trying for a barber shop on the main street. We found an Indian barber shop nearby, on the recommendation of an Indian money-changer. “Indian barber good,” he had proclaimed proudly. So, we had to try. Even as Chris and I dumped our fatigued and sored posteriors into the barber’s chairs, we heard news on the Indian channel that Erap aka Joseph Estrada had been forced out of office and that Aroyo had taken over. Well, both of us agreed that “Indian barber, good” especially after the shoulder massage and some terrifying cracking sounds from our cervical vertebrae. It was certainly value for money at RM10 and Vincent Low later took our suggestion and emerged with a more than satisfied grin.
A RM10 taxi ride took us to KL’s lively Chinatown where were ripped off over dinner at a Chinese restaurant there. Our mistake was in not asking for the prices in the menu. It was later that Sky apologetically told us that in the aftermath following the accident, he had forgotten to tell us not to eat at that restaurant: he had ‘been there, done that’.
Get ready for this: Dinner cost us RM494 which works out to RM62 each! This is not an upmarket French or Italian, much less Chinese restaurant! Try as he might, there was no way that Steve was going to get any reduction in the price. The restaurant even had the nerve to pocket the change on its own initiative!
But Chinatown that night was alive with truckloads of police officers in uniform and in plainclothes. A drama unfolded right in full view of us at the next table. A uniformed police officer and two plainclothes men checked three Malay youths who were drinking Singapore’s ‘freshest beer’. They were promptly arrested and the restaurant owner had his particulars documented.
Bernard, an ST1100 owner who, like Murphy had signed up to be a Stormer at Geylang Patah that morning, was not at the dinner table with us so he saved quite a bundle. The SAF officer-cadet criss-crossed Chinatown at least three times on his solo foray and reported witnessing a youth being checked and arrested for possessing a large packet of ‘sayur’ or marijuana. The drug problem in KL is spiralling and shocking to say the least and with the influx of Africans especially from Nigeria, the authorities will need a Herculean effort to tackle a social menace that is already spilling out at the seams.
We picked up anything that took our fancy including VCDs and fanciful clocks. Meanwhile, Sky had messaged to say that he would join us the next morning. So we returned to our hotel lugging our purchases along and while David, my room-mate and I decided to count sheep, Steve and the others explored the Jalan Alor precinct for the best supper.
At breakfast in the hotel the next morning, we were pleasantly surprised to see a metallic-turquoise Beemer parked nonchalantly by its owner right in front of the hotel’s main door. Sky had messaged to say that he was eating breakfast nearby. He had taken just two-and-one-half hour to reach KL from JB. “Very few vehicles and no speed traps,” he enthused. Well, welcome back Sky.
We took a leisurely stroll after a late breakfast and by 1230hr we were ready to leave. Steve must have been glad that Sky was back because this was only his third ride in KL – talk about getting lost?
After parking our bikes at the huge underground carpark of the Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre(KLCC) it was free-and-easy shopping again at the world’s tallest building, the Petronas Twin Tower. We would have loved to go up to the skywalk linking the two towers for an aerial view of KL but the snaking column of visitors told us ‘NO WAY’, not this time anyway.
The ride out of KL to the Sungei Besi toll was confusing at best but with every rider willingly marking the intersections and turns it made life more bearable. Sky, who knows KL well, led the way and promptly got us on a wild goose chase on a circuitous route that took us past the Federal Supreme Courts, Independence Square and the twin towers twice. Poor Sky, embarrassed no end, I must say. Still, our red-faced and good-natured leader who apologised copiously later, successfully led us to the toll plaza where Vincent bade us farewell and headed north to Hatyai for a three day sojourn.
After a quick top-up it was all the way to Pagoh. It poured buckets and along some stretches of the NS Highway, we were reduced to a crawl with dangerously low visibility and our visors fogging up. Chris’s Suzuki 650 encountered problems with only one spark firing. Water had seeped into the chamber and he stopped several times to tend to his bike. Of course, David, our sweeper was always there astride his Goldwing 1500 to lend reassurance, safety and confidence.
We rode into Perling for dinner and guess who joined us there? Yes, Kelly and baby Chris! The battered Nissan was in a JB workshop and repairs to the engine, bodywork and a new coat of spray paint set Sky and Kelly back by RM1200.
“That’s cheap,” the cheerful Sky said, tucking in the ‘bloody cockles’ with relish while Kelly worked on the innards of the bakut teh with baby Chris sipping herbal tea enthusiastically from the end of a drinking straw. “I had expected it to cost more than RM2000.” The smiling and demure Kelly agreed as she repositioned a wailing Chris who had slipped into an untenable sitting position in his baby chair.
So did her dad give Kelly hell? No, he didn’t because both had chosen to remain mum over the whole episode. But who knows, baby Chris may still spill the beans on them.
Malaysian bak-kwa at RM45 a kg for pork and RM47 a kg for chicken never tasted better, especially after Bernard and I drove through Singapore customs on our ST1100 with 2 kg each in our pannier boxes. Watch the cholesterol and the deposits of low-density lipoproteins in your arteries and cardio-vascular system, Bernard. But I guess the officer cadet has no problems with that. So what about me? Ooops …………
“I don’t feel good; she’s never late. I know something’s happened!” he intoned, as he inserted the ignition key and buttoned up his black Kevlar riding jacket. “You all wait here, I’ll go and look for her.”
Steve Chia, the ever-helpful president of SRMC, volunteered to go along with him but Skyyeo declined the offer. “You take care of the group but message or call me if she comes in.”
As the minutes ticked by, the tension became more unbearable. We could see that Sky was feeling jittery and already his tensed facial expression was awashed with perspiration. “Leave your handphone on,” added Steve as the metallic turquoise Beemer took off northwards from the Ayer Keroh R and R before heading south to Pagoh, our last stop. Kelly, Sky’s wife, and their 7-month-old Chris could be anywhere along the North-South Highway at the moment, but where?
Our group of nine bikers, with three riding two-up, backed by a Malaysian-registered Nissan driven by Kelly, had left the Esso Geylang Patah petrol station at 0805 hrs in high spirits. It was drizzling a little, but nothing that the StormRiders couldn’t handle especially when Kelly had graciously extended the her car boot to store our luggage. Murphy who had signed up on the spot as a Stormer, was riding two-up with Florence and he had deposited his large Givi top-box in the boot. Who wouldn’t, given the generosity of Sky and Kelly. I dumped my Bagster tankbag and suggested that Chris (Suzuki 650) did the same.
It was baby Chris’s third ride in the Nissan, with the Stormers; his first being the trip to Tasik Cini last year when he was just three months old. I had met baby Chris on my last ride to Batu Pahat; the ever-smiling and gregarious Chris took to every Stormer like a fish to water, relishing every ‘oohs-and-aarhs’ uttered by us. Kelly, a Malaysian and a nurse at the National University Hospital, Singapore, blended in well with everyone, ever-ready to serve.
The eight bikers and their pillions settled down for an uncomfortable wait for news from Sky; we prayed for good news: perhaps the car had stalled, or run out of petrol. On the other hand, it could have run into a traffic jam, especially with reports of a landslide along the NS Highway two days earlier. Troubling thoughts played havoc with our imagination. On the way to Ayer Keroh, we had seen the mangled wreckage of trailers and a Land Rover ignominously committed to the side of the tarmac. In one case, several recovery crew were hard at work. Intermitten drizzle and the ‘balek-kampong’ rush had added to the chaos and unfortunate statistics.
But we were in no rush. We had our hotel rooms booked at the Nova by Kelly and with the ‘Kongsi-
Raya’ spirit in everyone of us, we were looking forward to two days of glorious shopping and perhaps a haircut and wash.
“The car’s here,” someone alerted us. I looked up and noticed that the front registration plate had been almost ripped off! As it ambled closer to where we were standing, the four tyres seemed caked in mud and grass. That’s strange, I thought. Worse was to come; the front bumper was out of alignment and a signal light was hanging loose outside its socket. The front and rear passenger doors were bashed in and the door handle was jammed …. but that’s the side where baby Chris was always strapped into his seat!
As Kelly stepped unsteadily out of the Nissan, a message was immediately relayed to Sky. She was still in control but we could see that she was in a mild state of shock and unnerved by the ordeal she had undergone.
The car had skidded shortly after we left Pagoh and because she was right behind us, there was no way anyone of us could have been aware of the mishap. Her handphone … ? Yes, Sky had tried many times to reach her but there was no response and she had not called. Stranger than fiction, you may agree.
“I don’t know what happened. I wasn’t travelling fast. The car skidded and I tried to avoid colliding into the vehicle in front, so I steered away,” a badly-shaken Kelly explained.
The Nissan ended up in a grassy ditch, but tried as she could, she just couldn’t get the spinning wheels out of the mud. Several motorists stopped to help but it was in vain. Fortunately, a passing lorry stopped and towed the battered car out of the quagmire. Both mother and child escaped unscathed much to the relief of all of us. Sky couldn’t have been more thankful to the one above who must have been keeping watch.
Baby Chris wailed for all he was worth when he found himself all alone in the car and had to be picked up from the driver’s side because the passenger door was stuck. But with lots of cooing and purring from all present, he was back to his usual self with his ominpresent smile for everyone! He’s a tough one, this Chris.
A splintered tree branch had impaled itself into the engine compartment and was obstructing the radiator cooling fan. Steve and another Stormer took a few minutes to remove the intruding branch with tools from David Ong’s Goldwing and a Victorinox Swiss Army knife from Chris (Suzuki 650).
An much-anguished but relieved Sky rode into the petrol station 20 minutes later and was reconciled with his family, glad that his most precious possessions were still in one piece. Kelly was not in the proper frame of mind to continue escorting our bikers to KL. Sky suggested they get the car checked in Malacca while Steve would take on the responsibility of leading our group to KL. Later, they decided that it was best that they return home to JB. “Her father will give her hell,” he messaged me.
After a short briefing by Steve we headed for KL’s Sungei Besi toll and into the city’s notorious traffic snarls, heat, dust and exhaust pollutants. We ate lunch at a cosy but non-airconditioned restaurant with Vincent Low (Beemer RT) displaying his skill in selecting fish for a curry and an assam dish. At RM 17 per head, lunch was a steal.
KL with its one-way streets is confusing not only to the uninitiated but also to experienced bikers alike. It took us a while to locate The Nova at Jalan Alor, a notorious district known for its sleazy goings-on after sunset – ask any taxi driver. Finally, Steve decided it was in everyone’s interest to pay a taxi driver to lead us to our sojourn. Once we were comfortably settled in, it was shopping time at the upmarket Lot 10 and the more down-to-earth Bukit Bintang Plaza. A haircut and wash here can cost RM 45-65, so David Ong suggested trying for a barber shop on the main street. We found an Indian barber shop nearby, on the recommendation of an Indian money-changer. “Indian barber good,” he had proclaimed proudly. So, we had to try. Even as Chris and I dumped our fatigued and sored posteriors into the barber’s chairs, we heard news on the Indian channel that Erap aka Joseph Estrada had been forced out of office and that Aroyo had taken over. Well, both of us agreed that “Indian barber, good” especially after the shoulder massage and some terrifying cracking sounds from our cervical vertebrae. It was certainly value for money at RM10 and Vincent Low later took our suggestion and emerged with a more than satisfied grin.
A RM10 taxi ride took us to KL’s lively Chinatown where were ripped off over dinner at a Chinese restaurant there. Our mistake was in not asking for the prices in the menu. It was later that Sky apologetically told us that in the aftermath following the accident, he had forgotten to tell us not to eat at that restaurant: he had ‘been there, done that’.
Get ready for this: Dinner cost us RM494 which works out to RM62 each! This is not an upmarket French or Italian, much less Chinese restaurant! Try as he might, there was no way that Steve was going to get any reduction in the price. The restaurant even had the nerve to pocket the change on its own initiative!
But Chinatown that night was alive with truckloads of police officers in uniform and in plainclothes. A drama unfolded right in full view of us at the next table. A uniformed police officer and two plainclothes men checked three Malay youths who were drinking Singapore’s ‘freshest beer’. They were promptly arrested and the restaurant owner had his particulars documented.
Bernard, an ST1100 owner who, like Murphy had signed up to be a Stormer at Geylang Patah that morning, was not at the dinner table with us so he saved quite a bundle. The SAF officer-cadet criss-crossed Chinatown at least three times on his solo foray and reported witnessing a youth being checked and arrested for possessing a large packet of ‘sayur’ or marijuana. The drug problem in KL is spiralling and shocking to say the least and with the influx of Africans especially from Nigeria, the authorities will need a Herculean effort to tackle a social menace that is already spilling out at the seams.
We picked up anything that took our fancy including VCDs and fanciful clocks. Meanwhile, Sky had messaged to say that he would join us the next morning. So we returned to our hotel lugging our purchases along and while David, my room-mate and I decided to count sheep, Steve and the others explored the Jalan Alor precinct for the best supper.
At breakfast in the hotel the next morning, we were pleasantly surprised to see a metallic-turquoise Beemer parked nonchalantly by its owner right in front of the hotel’s main door. Sky had messaged to say that he was eating breakfast nearby. He had taken just two-and-one-half hour to reach KL from JB. “Very few vehicles and no speed traps,” he enthused. Well, welcome back Sky.
We took a leisurely stroll after a late breakfast and by 1230hr we were ready to leave. Steve must have been glad that Sky was back because this was only his third ride in KL – talk about getting lost?
After parking our bikes at the huge underground carpark of the Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre(KLCC) it was free-and-easy shopping again at the world’s tallest building, the Petronas Twin Tower. We would have loved to go up to the skywalk linking the two towers for an aerial view of KL but the snaking column of visitors told us ‘NO WAY’, not this time anyway.
The ride out of KL to the Sungei Besi toll was confusing at best but with every rider willingly marking the intersections and turns it made life more bearable. Sky, who knows KL well, led the way and promptly got us on a wild goose chase on a circuitous route that took us past the Federal Supreme Courts, Independence Square and the twin towers twice. Poor Sky, embarrassed no end, I must say. Still, our red-faced and good-natured leader who apologised copiously later, successfully led us to the toll plaza where Vincent bade us farewell and headed north to Hatyai for a three day sojourn.
After a quick top-up it was all the way to Pagoh. It poured buckets and along some stretches of the NS Highway, we were reduced to a crawl with dangerously low visibility and our visors fogging up. Chris’s Suzuki 650 encountered problems with only one spark firing. Water had seeped into the chamber and he stopped several times to tend to his bike. Of course, David, our sweeper was always there astride his Goldwing 1500 to lend reassurance, safety and confidence.
We rode into Perling for dinner and guess who joined us there? Yes, Kelly and baby Chris! The battered Nissan was in a JB workshop and repairs to the engine, bodywork and a new coat of spray paint set Sky and Kelly back by RM1200.
“That’s cheap,” the cheerful Sky said, tucking in the ‘bloody cockles’ with relish while Kelly worked on the innards of the bakut teh with baby Chris sipping herbal tea enthusiastically from the end of a drinking straw. “I had expected it to cost more than RM2000.” The smiling and demure Kelly agreed as she repositioned a wailing Chris who had slipped into an untenable sitting position in his baby chair.
So did her dad give Kelly hell? No, he didn’t because both had chosen to remain mum over the whole episode. But who knows, baby Chris may still spill the beans on them.
Malaysian bak-kwa at RM45 a kg for pork and RM47 a kg for chicken never tasted better, especially after Bernard and I drove through Singapore customs on our ST1100 with 2 kg each in our pannier boxes. Watch the cholesterol and the deposits of low-density lipoproteins in your arteries and cardio-vascular system, Bernard. But I guess the officer cadet has no problems with that. So what about me? Ooops …………
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