The day begins well. We take a walk along the beach on the north coast of Penang Island and paddle our feet in the blood temperature sea. There are children playing on the edge of the water, while the women sit shrouded in scarves and loose clothes under the trees. No-one is actually in the water, swimming, not even the few men. Stinging jelly fish are quite common here, but the water is too murky to see if this is what’s keeping everyone out.
Adrian decides to take the scenic drive through the national park before we cross the bridge to the mainland and head for Kuala Lumpur. But after nearly an hour, the narrow roads that climb and twist through the rainforest begin to lose their appeal and we still have a long drive ahead. At last, we arrive at the Sultan Abdul Halim Mu’adzam Shah bridge – all twenty four kilometres of it, which makes it the second longest in South East Asia. As we leave the bridge for the freeway, the rain begins. Then there’s lightening and thunder, the heavens open and we’re in a full blown tropical storm.
If you’ve never experienced tropical rain, it’s perhaps hard to imagine what it’s like driving through a dense sheet of water, particularly when the driver’s windscreen wiper decides to fall apart and waggle it’s rubber bit uselessly in the air. This is exactly what happens and Adrian’s visibility is instantly reduced to nil. We hit the hazard lights, head for the totally inadequate hard shoulder and slow to a stop. As Adrian reaches for his thin cycling top – much good that will do – I note the proximity of the freeway traffic. It’s inches away. ’This isn’t safe,’ I shout above the noise and after a few seconds, Adrian agrees.
We crawl along the hard shoulder unable to see anything in front of us, lines, barriers, cars. By placing my face against the passenger window, I can see just enough ahead to warn Adrian if he’s veering off course. I also look desperately for a lay-by, but this is an unknown concept here. Finally I spot an ad-hoc break in the barrier and a few feet of extra tarmac. We pull up, reverse and Adrian climbs out into the storm.
Within seconds he’s soaked to the skin and pocketing his glasses which are useless in the torrent of rain. I watch as he frowns at the intact wiper and tries to emulate the arrangement with the broken one. We flick them on and it flies apart again. He struggles on, fitting the small uncooperative pieces this way and that until finally, on slow, the wiper stays together. He’s now extremely wet and chilled and we’re in the bizarre situation of turning on the heating in the tropics. With just enough visibility, Adrian soldiers on to the next services – squat loos and not much else, but we can stop for a moment and take stock. With typical contrariness, minutes later, the rain stops and the sun comes out. We sit for a moment, stunned.
Adrian checks the wiper once more, towels himself off and manoeuvres back onto the freeway while I contact the hire car company in KL. I get little joy and we decide, after testing the wiper in a few more downpours, to continue the rest of our trip as we are. Several hundred kilometres later we hit the edge of Kuala Lumpur, join the inevitable gridlock of cars and finally, thankfully, pull into the forecourt of our hotel and into the well oiled machine that is the Malaysian hospitality industry. Dozens of people are employed by hotels with the sole purpose of politely, smilingly getting guests and their luggage out of their cars and into their rooms in as short a time as possible.
Unlike the UK, there’s no shortage of labour here. Malaysia is a thriving country with a young population and an affluent middle class that now fills the hotels, resorts and upmarket clubs. The country is looking to the future. As we confirm for ourselves the following day, it has no interest in its British past. I’ve heard old ex-pats call Malaysia one of Britain’s most successful colonies, but Britain is no longer relevant. Or even present. It’s non-existent. I wish those Brexiteers who hark back to the British empire could learn this lesson.
But now it’s time to toast my husband, who got us here in one piece. We might have spent the whole day on the verge of that freeway waiting for the breakdown service or worse, Adrian might have been hit by any number of cars all with storm reduced visibility. They were certainly too close for comfort. So I raise my glass with its very small and expensive quantity of wine. Adrian, hero of the day.