Road Trip

I was out at a resort over the Friday-Saturday (We decided on that because I had to get back because I am still on Sunday School duty).

Now, if I blog about yesterday, I may have alot to write about. Now that it's 24 hours later, the excitement kinda weaned off. But I'll write it down anyway...

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We went to a resort in Johor Bahru, Malaysia (JB), based on a map that I printed from the website (later, I was told that I could've gotten bigger maps by clicking on the smaller maps. Duh-me.) Finding our way there was no problem, because P has been there before (we booked the room under her boss's name, cos he's a member at the resort). After spending our afternoon lazing at the pool, we decided to stop watching Singapore tv and having dinner before heading to town (another friend was joining us later that night).

At around 10, we arrived at the town to pick up our friend R before heading for karaoke (we decided against cheoging disco cos we did it last Wed - another story). We sang till the joint closed at 3am and are all too tired to continue on for supper or whatever, and so we decided to head back to the resort.

And yes, the exciting part is coming up...

Our driver, JH frequents JB frequently, hence, we were pretty confident that we would have little problem finding our way back. It was until when we realised that we were driving on an endless "road with light reflector" that we kinda figured that we have been on the wrong highway(ie. wrong exit, wrong road...).

If you've ever drived on Malaysian road, you'd know that the road signs are not that reliable. And besides, the roads we took was dark and void of any street lamps, and it makes it much harder to make out whether we are on the right track. Desperate for directions, we stopped by at the next gas station to ask for direction. With our broken Malay, we managed to get him to draw up a map for us.

The map did not take us to where we want to, because we took the wrong exit, and drove into a very dark highway. There were housing units along the road, but none of them were lit (strange eh). When we reached the end, we realised we have been driving on the road to Kulai, which is the road up north to Melaka or Kuala Lumpur!

So quickly, we made a U-turn (in fact quite a few illegal ones along the way) and was relieved to find a police station. Upon entering the station, the officer woke up. We asked him how do we get to Senai (where our resort was) and requested for him to draw a map, but he said he doesn't know how to draw a map.. He shoke his head and replied in Malay that he is new to the station and reckon Senai is probably about 30 km away.

Yep, that's the closest help we could get... While we went to the toilet at the station (flush did not work, we had to do manual flushing), JH went to the other side of the road, hoping to get some help from the staff at the gas station there. No luck. Then we saw him approaching a motorcycle rider who stopped at the side of the road, and came back with a map drawn. Later, we got to know that the rider just had an accident and was covered in blood when JH approached him. But he seemed sober when JH asked if he is alright. Queer huh?

With that map, we were on the road again. Because we were now on the road leading to JB, the signs were looking friendlier, and the roads even more so. All this time, we have had our car radio tuned to Singapore's Class 95 station, that helped to calm our anxious nerves. And when the national anthem of Singapore was played at 6am, all of us burst into patriotism and sang along. We were some 12 km away from our resort then.

Did I mention that there were 4 girls and 1 guy on this road trip? :D JH was the only man, and the pressured and tension was on him who was behind the wheels. But what was amazing was that all my women companions were not the jumpy type, and it somewhat made the long trip easier. Though we were anxious to get back, we did not go crazy at the lack of directions. Oh yeah, all this happened because we did not have a map of JB. Things would've been different if we had one.

But all in all, things went well, thank God. I was praying in the car that God will show us the way, and at one point I shouled "Hallelujah!" to my fellow passengers (who are all non-believers). We even went shopping the next day (I had to get some rewards for my Sunday class! Oh, I bought a pair of shoes too, hehe! ;)

Kulai will be a memory for all of us. It was a fun and memorable 36 hours with my friends :)