Misery in Malaysia

We got to the port in Butterworth early, to be ready for Kady’s dis-embarkation.

What a bad decision!!! Nothing ran on time and everything took 10 times longer than anticipated. We ended up spending hours and hours in the hot sun (I thoroughly sun-burned my face)

on the pier while this wooden row boat (not really, but the shipping boat was not far removed from an over-sized row boat) unloaded each Tuk Tuk - one-by-one - in a cargo net.

It took 15-20 minutes PER TUK-TUK and no-one even showed up to start the process until after 10 AM.We were all

standing around nervously waiting to see if any of the vehicles would even drive. Kady came through like a trooper … we reconnected the battery and she started straight up (which is real bragging rights because almost every other Tuk Tuk had to get a pushing start after the boat ride)

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So we were feeling GREAT as all of the Tuk Tuks headed out of the port about 2:30 PM for the start of the trip up through Malaysia to the Thai border. We had a police escort for the first 30 KMs to get us out of the city.

About 19 of the 24 Tuk Tuks left (4 died - completely - in Indonesia and were left by the roadside) made it out of the port on their own steam (5 got left on the dock in various stages of mechanical failure). Then…. Less than 2 miles later as we were heading down a busy highway …. Disaster struck!!! All of a sudden, Kady would not go into gear. Since this was the first time Chris was driving we decided immediately to blame him (just kidding). We pushed Kady to the side of the road and Chris climbed underneath and discovered that the clutch cable had broken apart. He tried to jerry-rig it back together using some wire, duct tape and a keychain clip… but we still could not get her into gear. Chris and Rainey started pushing Kady down the highway (with me steering) to the next exit, which was over a mile away … sweating and cussing with every step.

We rolled into a rest stop and no-one had any idea how to find a Tuk Tuk mechanic. Malaysia outlawed Tuk-Tuks years ago and no such vehicle exists in this country. We had a nice stranger call a car mechanic, but he refused to come out and work on Kady. We were starting to feel desperate. We also realized that we did not have very much Malaysian cash to pay a mechanic so Rainey and I walked to the nearest gas station (while Chris stayed with Kady and continued to see if he could fix her). The woman attendant at the gas station got her father to take Rainey to the nearest bank with an ATM and then begged a man buying gas to drive me to the nearest garage. The first two body shop places refused to help. The poor man kept driving me on to new places as I got turned away. At the third place, I literally begged the man who ran the bike shop to come with me and at least look at Kady. I must have been very pitiful because he agreed …. And ended up working on Kady until after 9 PM to get her fixed. We had to tow her to his garage as the new clutch cable needed to be welded on. And then .. right as the work was done and we were finally about to get on the road….

The heavens opened and it started to pour. Not to be deterred, we put the luggage into black garbage bags, dragged on our rain jackets and headed out. Within 15 minutes Kady’s entire roof was leaking like a sieve with the water pouring in like a water spout. We were thoroughly drenched, the floor of Kady was 2 inches under water and the storm was only getting worse. I called “Uncle” and we stopped at a gas station to ask for directions to a hotel. If we had been inquiring about how to build a space shuttle to Mars we might have had an easier time. It took 6 people (including all attendants and several customers) to even come up with the name of a hotel within a 30 mile radius. My sense was that not a single person we were talking to had ever spent the night in a hotel, far less ever had a need for one. With great trepidation we headed off to the only name we got and - when we arrived - there was only one room left in the whole place so we had few to no options. Luckily the room had one queen bed and one twin bed so we could all fit and it was really not awful. Humble but at least clean. We went to the Kentucky Fried Chicken that was next to the hotel (the only place still open by this time), picked up the first piece of food we had seen since breakfast, and fell dead asleep.

This morning (Friday morning) we were up by 5 AM to try and make up some of the time we lost yesterday with our break-down. By 9 AM, we were in Alon Setar and having breakfast (odd but quite delicious French toast) and we crossed into Thailand by noon.

The scenery in the North of Malaysia was really pretty: thick jungle and hills

We saw four other Tuk Tuk groups at the Thai border… one Tuk was working. One Tuk Tuk was towing another one. And the last was on the back of a truck. Suddenly we felt quite lucky that Kady was doing as well as she is.

Right over the border we even found a decent restaurant with a single item menu (it served only fried rice) but it was good. We are going to do a long driving day today and try to get within a few hours of the finish line in Krabi. The run ends tomorrow night with a big party in Krabi. The organizers moved the finish line a few days ago to South of Bangkok because of the flooding so we are ending a day early.