SPOT THE DIFFERENCE
Competition:
First person to leave a comment stating the difference in these pictures wins a roti.
Whoever guesses the story of the second picture wins the curry sauce to go with it.
We’ll eat both for you tomorrow for breakfast OK!
Now another story while you think.
Of Bumps and Bruises.
Day started with ER2 banging her head on the tiles three times – once she fell off the bed, once she was running when she shouldn’t have been, once she was dropped by a sister, who should not have been picking her up. Doesn’t matter where in the world you are, these things happen!
Then the car hiccupped <hint hint>. Or rather, it wouldn’t start. So the adult boys ended up with another tow truck ride and amazingly cheap repair story to tell.
Meanwhile I took the children for a play at the playground over the back of the YMCA, where we are staying. Have we shown you our digs here yet? No, I didn’t think so:
Anyway, T4 fell on the skateboard ramp, donking her head on the concrete.
Our afternoon plans were thwarted by the car saga, but we made it to dinner at a Thai restaurant. Yummo. Although, not before L7 managed to stand on some broken glass in our room, cutting his big toe.
The BUMP came at the end of the meal. 74-year-old Uncle Yew Weng slipped on the wide concrete steps and crashed onto the road, splitting his head open. It very quickly became apparent that he needed to be taken to hospital, where he was kept in overnight. Although he would turn out to be fine, we were not so certain at the time, and as he was being helped into the car, T4 tugged on my hand and suggested, “Could we ask God to help him?” So we did. In the morning T4 would awake with a question on her lips, “How is Uncle Yew Weng?”. Even before eating breakfast, she completed a journal entry:
That’s Uncle with stubble on his chin and the blood pouring out to the pool on the ground. The old tea towel used as a bandage is covered with more blood stains. He is sad and his hands are outstretched as he falls.
We got home to M6 in tears over a sore foot. Turns out he had a white pus-filled blister between two toes, which Rob popped in due course, and without the crying boy’s knowledge!
So have you worked out the difference between the two photos?
You’re right if you don’t see much!
Rob can take over the story from here….
OK, if you are on to it, or you received our email, you will now know that we had a real case of déjà-vu with the van. It was just meant to be a quick trip out to the cyber-cafe to check that our room booking in Penang had been confirmed. Grandpa and I and K9 drove down to Ipoh-Parade – one of the local malls. First we parked in the parking building, went into the mall, only to find the internet cafe was a full house – and there are over 80 terminals in the place! Talk about good business! So, we quickly decided to drive over to another mall where we had been told there was another cafe. Well, you guessed it, we got there only to be told there was NO internet cafe here… but down the road at the “business compleks” there were plenty. So we got back in the van and drove down the road, but try as we might, we could not find any sign of any “compleks”….although we were starting to develop our own by this stage. So, we rashly decided the only option was to go back to our original cafe and see if a terminal was now free! Now, note that it is only 2 km from the YMCA, so we were expecting to be back well in time for our 3:30 pm “tea” appointment (which here means more of a small meal!) I drove into the carpark at the mall, which was still mega-busy… it was a Saturday afternoon after all! Double parking and risking the wrath of the whistle-blowing, uniformed security guard on duty, I said I would run upstairs to the cyber cafe and see if there was a terminal.
By now you are wondering when am I going to get to the van issue! Well, it all happened as quickly as in this post…. I ran upstairs, got a terminal for 20 minutes and called Grandpa, who said he was still outside the mall as the van had just stalled on him and he was going to try and restart it (it had developed a particular aversion to hot-starting!) I checked the emails and headed back down stairs, and Grandpa and K9 were still in the van outside the mall. The van would not start. We left it for the obligatory 15 minutes; still dead. We left it some more… not even a splutter. I texted my cousin to say we may be late for “tea”…. little did I know! While we waited for the engine to cool completely (a trick that had worked in the past), I disconnected the air filter, took the cover off the carb and checked the fuel line. No fuel! Hmmm, faulty fuel pump or blocked fuel filter? Re-assembling everything confirmed this, no sign of life from the engine, no whiff of petrol, despite our vigorous tap dance on the accelerator.
Thankfully Grandpa is a member of the AA in NZ – so we tested out the reciprocity agreement between NZ and Malaysia and rang the AAM… and also my cousin to say we definitely would not be making it to tea! Talking to the AAM helpdesk in a mixture of broken English and Bahasa, we hoped we had managed to clarify our problem and our location. We were told a service vehicle would be there in 40 minutes.
Amazingly, within 20 minutes of our initial call, an AAM tow-truck arrived on scene. The driver spoken even less English, but thankfully my cousin had arrived and translated for us – and also offered to ferry K9 back to the YMCA for us. Bottom line – we needed to be towed to the nearest garage for repair, and thankfully they seemed to accept Grandpa’s NZ AA card as legitimate. Within 45 minutes of that call we were on the road… with another “ON TOW” sign dolefully hanging off the rear window of the van… Grandpa and I squashed into the cab of a tow truck for the second time in a week! We were taken to a garage where three guys immediately jumped into the van and started stripping seats, engine linings, handbrake assemblies (it would be a van, right?). Within just over 2 1/2 hours of our initial mayday call to the AAM, they had replaced the faulty fuel pump, re-assembled everything and presented us with the “fixed-price-only lah!” bill. The damage? RM230 (about $105 NZ) for the pump, and $50 RM ($22 NZ) for the labour. Now that is service! The towie even had the decency to ensure there was a place next to the garage selling roti canai, which Grandpa and I had to sample while waiting 🙂
And the best part of it all? They fixed the van just in time for us to get back to the “Y”, take a shower and make it out for dinner! Ah… the food!
Tags: postcard: Malaysia, transport
rayres
Have read your last few posts with a smile on my face and a giggle escaping my lips every now and then! Thinking bout you guys heaps and praying often. Take care x
So far there are definite themes of food, auto repairs … and food! Now a sprinkling of bumps thrown in (for which we will pray a stop!). Hope your Uncle recovers well and that M6 and L7’s feet are healing quickly. Maybe helmets could become part of the playtime uniform? 🙂 You really are experiencing life in another culture!!
Hi! Wow, what adventures you are having! I am so glad my computer is finally updating me! For the last 10 days it has been showing me the coconut entry and nothing more recent! Ali assured me today that you had posted every day, so i pressed refresh and sure enough, there you are!
We are praying for all your bumps and bruises! And that van!
All our love, The Angoves (Javi and Jess!!!)
praying for safety for your family