The jokes keep coming in good ol’ Malaysia. I wrote this a
few months ago but never posted it…
I had been having no problems with my motorbike. Sure, I ran
out of gas here and there, but that’s become the usual. This particular day I
was on the way to the bus station to buy tickets for the upcoming weekend. As I
slow down to the biggest intersection in Kuantan, my motorbike dies. I try to
start it. It doesn’t work. I keep trying. A man on a motorbike in front of me
sees me at the stop light frantically trying to kickstart my bike without any
success, and he offers to help. He can’t do it either. He tells me to get on
his motorbike and drive through the intersection, and he will walk my bike to a
nearby shop. What a fine gentleman. We get to the shop and the guys there try
to fix it, and can’t. The whole time his man is waiting for me, I keep telling
him I’m okay, he can go back to work (which was where he was headed before he
stopped to help me). He insisted he stay with me until my bike was fixed,
because he was worried people would take advantage of me (because I’m white). Eventually
I call my bike shop who came to tow it away and it was fixed the next day.
Fast forward to last night. Holly, Owen and I are on our
merry way to get dinner at our favorite Thai restaurant, and as we pull up to
the same intersection, my bike dies, again. Some people manage to start it, but
it doesn’t stay on. So I walk it through the intersection and to a nearby gas
station. I fill it with gas, and it starts. Must have run out of gas again.
Oops.
So today is a new day. It’s a great day because we don’t
have school. Holly and I decide to make the drive up to Cherating, a nice beach
about 45 minutes north of us. Once we’re there, I notice something is off with
my bike. I look at my tires and find my back tire is flat. I slowly drive it
down the road, looking for a motorbike shop to fix it. I find one, but it’s
closed because it’s a holiday. Of course. I find another one a bit down the
road and hooray! It’s open. As soon as we get there, it starts pouring. Typical
Malaysian weather. So the man fixes my tire, and we wait around for about 45
minutes for the rain to stop. It stops, and I hop on my bike to leave, just to
find that my tire is flat. Again. Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. So we wait around
some more for someone to drive somewhere else and get me a part I need. It’s
fixed again, I leave, and this time with no flat tires!
At this point, it was too wet and too late in the day to go
to the beach, so we just decide to find a place to eat and call it a day before
heading back to Kuantan. We do that, and on the way home, my chain comes off my
bike. I can’t go anywhere. It’s getting dark, and we had no idea where we were.
So Holly and I split up and each of us are on the opposite side of the road,
trying to flag down passing by motorists to see if they can help. It works—a
few people manage to put the chain back on, and one of them goes to find an
open motorbike shop. He comes back, and tells us to follow him. On the way
there, my chain comes off again. More people help to put it back on. We
eventually make it to the shop, they fix the chain, and we made it back to
Kuantan. Such is the life of a second-hand motorbike owner in Malaysia.
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