immensity of highways
In Auckland there is one main motorway system. If you take an exit you end up on a suburban road every time. Rarely will there be more than two lanes, only very occasionally four.
No wonder we find the KL highways intimidating. For a start, there can be ten lanes across. That is not a misprint. I mean ten! If you come from LA, this is not anything to write home about, but remember we’re from two-lane-country. So back to the ten lanes…three of them can be the offramp. But they may not go off to suburbia. Well, they *might* (you turn the corner and you’ve got houses a mere metre from the road, which is equally foreign to us….there should be a wide grassy verge next to main roads), but those three lanes will possibly turn into five lanes, three going in one direction, two taking another, which might happen to be a complete u-turn back to where you’ve just come from. How do you know which one is the “main” road? Sometimes you simply don’t! You drive and hope. And notice that you are now on another major highway, which again has turned into eight lanes. Repeat this process over and over….and soon you start feeling caught in a labrynth of main roads, all going somewhere important, all full of cars. Oh yes, there may be eight lanes, but there can be ten cars abreast, because the purpose of lane markings is not to tell you where to drive. You drive where there is space, and where this is no space, you just make some. While on the one hand this is frightening, it is also an amazing thing to watch or be in the middle of, because everyone is so polite about making their space and it just fluidly happens. But you still have no idea where you are, because you’re on your fifth main highway getting sucked further and further into the abyss, until occasionally you escape through a Plaza Tol, pay your few ringgit and start all over again.
Needless to say, the sense of accomplishment when you actually manage to make it across town with only one wrong turn (and which you were able to self-correct) is somewhat significant! Go Rob!! Loving being your navigator 😉
Tags: postcard: Malaysia, transport
rayres
KL highways would scare me
I think Rob is very brave thought this the other day when I read about your adventures getting somewhere and getting lost
I dont even like being a passenger in the city of Auckland anymore
I wont even think about driving any more and its only 4 years since I moved down here to the Bay
praying for safe travels
blessings
Jen
Be brave,be strong for the Lord your God is with you
ha! Rob!
go go gadget… (movie line lol)
way to go Rach, i can’t find my way out of a paper bag.
hope all the tummies are happy now X
Seems like you guys have been gone way longer than the 12 days your ticker tells me!!!
Great to see that you are enjoying yourselves. Thank you for the p/cs.
Summer Sailor
too familiar!!!!!