This can’t be right. The bus driver has his foot down on the accelerator, is wiping the sweat away from his forehead, yet traffic is passing us with ease. We appear to be almost going backwards! Wasn’t this supposed to be the luxury express bus from Kuala Lumpur to The Cameron Highlands? My wife looks across at me with a face of deep suspicion and the feeling grows that we have made one of those all too easily made travelling mishaps.
Sure the bus was a little ramshackle and rough around the
edges but then again we had grown accustomed to transport like this during many
summers of travel in Asia. Then there was also the lack of tourists onboard,
just one sunburnt couple at the back, who were also bearing similar expressions
of confusion mixed with a healthy dose of dread. The other passengers appeared
to be almost all Malaysian workers, contentedly fast asleep in the faded pale
green, slightly decaying ‘luxury’ seats.
A huge motorway sign saying ‘North’ confirms to us that at
least we are going in the right direction. Clearly there is little we can do
apart from sit back and enjoy the view as a continual procession of banana
plantations slowly passes us by outside the coaches murky windows.
Suddenly though, my
wife leaps back in her seat.
“I saw something move!” She gasps.
I can’t see anything but she is scared stiff.
“There it goes again!”
I still can’t see anything. Then, I get a glimpse of a black
blur racing across the top of one of the workmen’s identical dark grey
hold-alls. I try to reassure her but to no avail.
As I turn my gaze back towards the window I notice 2 black
eyes and a set of twirling antenna staring at me in the face. A big, rather
curious looking cockroach is looking down at me from on top of the seat in
front. We watch in distress as the bug races across the seat in front of us we
ponder our limited options. The coach is full so we can’t move to another seat.
Killing it would not be easy without inflicting damage on a fellow passenger.
If we brush it away it would land on
another passenger!
Luckily a sleeping Malaysian is woken by our alarm and, in
order to be able to continue his snooze, calmly gets up, grabs a kleenex and
squashes the offending insect in one swipe. Without so much as a satisfied grin
he slumps back to sleep in his chair.
Our relief is short lived however as from under my chair
emerge two more of the brutes. This time my wife digs into her bag for a last
resort remedy. The expensive and deadly insect spray “Bloom” bought from our
local supermarket.
“This will show them!” She exclaims as she sprays them both
full blast with a potent hiss of spray.
Much to our despair though, this merely encourages them. Now
we have a whole cockroach family gathered beneath us scurrying around with joy.
6 hours to our destination and we just have to hold on and hope for the
best.
Hours of continual bug vigilance later, we finally begin to
climb the hills and begin our ascent to the Highlands. Darkness begins to
surround the coach, more passengers board and we begin to rock dangerously
around the steep precipices of mountainous central Malaysia. Having not seen a
roach for some while we trust that they have become bored and decided to sneak
back into the chassis of the coach. It gets darker and to our further
astonishment we realise that there are no functioning lights inside the coach. All
is pitch black, the only glimmer is that provided by passing cars.
Then, silhouetted against the windscreen, I see the now
familiar form of a big bug stealthily making its way up the window towards the
ragged curtains hitched up next to the seat in front. I clutch my wife closer
and try to make out the time on my watch. Surely we have to arrive soon.
Having climbed for some time we gradually begin our descent
through the isolated settlements close to Tana Rata, our final destination. The bus slows, the doors open and we scramble
for the exits. Hmmm, there must be another way to get to the Cameron Highlands!
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