pearl of the orient

Before I forget all the memories of my recent trip, I better not procastinate and write down an entry now.
We left home at 12.30 am on 12th June ( Mon ) after around 3-4 hrs of sleep. Its the first time for both of us , travelling up the north south highway in the dark. And it'll be the first time for our purple kia to travel such a long distance too. Everything went well , Alhamdulillah. Except that it rained very heavily and our visibility was affected as the night flies kept getting stucked to our windscreen. We have to make 2 stops to remove them as the winscreen wiper cant seem to remove it. The wet tissues that we brought along did not go to waste after all. Hubby drove for this first part of the journey. Until about 4 plus, both of us were still very wide awake. I forced myself to keep awake so as to ensure that my driver is awake. He has a record for sleeping at anytime , any place in any position. hehe.

We went for a toilet stop and coffee break at Tempat Rehat bukit Dengkil. At first, I feared that the rest stops will be very lonely and scary at night. But apparently I was wrong. As long as we go to a R n R area along the north south highway, it is very brightly lit and there are lotsa ppl stopping by as well. But dont go to the 'hentian sebelah' stops as it is a small stop and hardly anybody stops by there.

After that stop, both our eyes started to feel very heavy. both of us persevered and we finally reached Tapah at around 6.30am to do our Subuh prayers. After that we just lie down in the car and rested our tired eyes and stretch our cramped bodies. We know that after Tapah, the roads gets more difficult as it stretches across hills and tunnels and thus it will be rather dangerous to travel in the dark. Our purple Kia looks tired and quite battered too by that time. Take a look at the casualties we encountered.


I was quite suprised to see soo many night flies on my car. Its no wonder that our windscreen keep getting blur because of them. There must be hundreds and hundreds of them.

After Tapah, I took over the wheels coz kesian tengok hubby drive. But I warned him not to sleep coz I need him to navigate. The drive was much harder as we had to deal with ascending and descending slopes as well as cut through a tunnel that goes under the hills..

At around 9 plus near to 10am, we passed by the penang border. Alhamdulillah. The next stage is now to find the penang bridge. We realised we passed by the bridge when we saw a sign that points that the bridge was in another direction. I think he is a better driver and I think I am a better navigator. So we switched.

We went for a cheap but good carwash by the locals before checking in at the Bayview hotel , on the Batu Feringgi beach at 11.30am. The feeling of having driven 700++ km and finally reaching our destination was undescribeable. We were tired . but satisfied. most importantly, we did it! just the two of us. More of our trip coming up soon .