Saturday, August 15, 2009

The Bus Is Here!

Just Bring Your Appetite....
A few months ago in Paris, Pingle was huddled over computer typing furiously. Nothing unusual I guess but it stood out in intensity. I asked her what she was doing. "Planning for Malaysia" she said without looking up. Saturday morning I got a glimpse of how deep the planning went. I dragged myself out of bed at 6:30am and slept-walked outside to find a huge bus waiting for us. There was a placard on the bus, as you can see. We were headed to Malacca, Malaysia - a province on the west coast of the Malaysian peninsula.


There was even an itinerary - which was almost entirely food-related. Scary - but her family is even more into food than she is. There were 17 family members, me, a bus driver and a tour guide.


Once at the edge of Singapore we had to get off the bus and pass through Singaporean immigration and customs. We then walked through, re-boarded the bus and headed across the bridge into Malaysia. Same deal there, off the bus, through immigration and customs and back onto the bus. Pingle loaded me up with 50 Malaysian Ringitt - in case I needed to bribe someone.


Many slept on the 4 hr trip. Pingle's aunt and uncle knocked out the earliest of all. I watched the passing countryside. Relatively flat with some distant hills, extremely green and hazy, palm plantations everywhere.
Some of us don't wake up well early in the morning. I think Pingle's sis Joanne is used to going to bed around 6am, not getting up then.... This shot was taken at our first stop. Check it out here.

2 comments:

The Puff Speaks... said...

Guess what?

Everyone now wished we had chicken rice balls for lunch instead of Nonya food... Sigh... It's hard to please everyone :)

FN said...

I think going for the Nonya food was the right call - that is what you're supposed to eat in this part of the world, hello?