A Journey For Thought

It has been one of the worst weeks of the year. So much so that I thought I might get away for the weekend...

To all of you who read Jac's blog (www.theslogreviews.blogspot.com, like she needs more readers), learning about her complaints about how cold it is on her fully paid business trip to South Africa and how the Business Class conditions and amenities she experienced on this occasion were not up to the usual high standards, how's this for a comparison?

I'm now stuck in a non-airconditioned internet cafe near Meldrum Walk, an alley in Johor Bahru just past the Causeway which serves cheap and good food and which, nonetheless, because of the surrounding environs and the slightly over-sized cockroaches scurrying across the floor, once caused Jac to ask me if I wanted her to get cholera.

I am sweating in my work clothes (sleeves rolled up of course) because I had chosen this course on the spur of the moment right after work. Well, its not really the spur of the moment, because I anticipated that I might make a spur of the moment decision and so brought my passport and partly packed haversack but you get what I mean.

I have just come off a half-an-hour wait and 200m long queue at Bugis for the express Causeway Link buses which ply travellers to our fine neighbours up North, followed by another half-an-hour wait in the bus a mere 500m from the drop-off point at the Singapore checkpoint because a fine complication in the road slightly ahead meant the vehicle stood rooted to the spot, gridlocked. And no, we were not allowed to alight.

That was followed by the usual hurried and harried rush across both immigration checkpoints, which to be fair, was less painful than usual. For those of you who know what I mean, I did not have to grace the scanner with both my index fingers. And neither did the rest of the French tourists in front of me (surprising!), which meant the queue at the Malaysian side was at least bearable.

But the damage was done at Bugis and on the road near the Singapore checkpoint, which meant that by the time I reached the train station, all seats for Kuala Lumpur, never mind the comfortable sleepers, were all sold out.

So here I am, waiting for the 11.30pm bus to KL, in an internet cafe which smells funny and has Indian music blaring out loud.

Yup, to KL is where I am going, that much I know. What I'm going to do there, where I'm going to go next, I do not know. Maybe there is a perverse beauty about this - not knowing what comes next. But where once, during my younger years, this filled me with exhilaration and epitomized the endless possibilities that awaited us in life, this same circumstance now rather evokes a kind of helplessnes, a feeling of directionless in me. It seems very much like... my life in general...

But I knew I wanted to get away. I didn't have to, but I chose to. Maybe I will learn something new in the few days to come...

And maybe Jac will stop whining and listen to me complain for a change when she comes back (after the tearful reunion with her CCB, that is)...