Finally – Malaysian soil!

My first view of Malaysia

Our fun day in Singapore, enjoying the zoo and then exploring the shops on Orchard Road was pure holiday. The next day, however, my serious pilgrimage really began. This was the day we were to travel by coach from Singapore, across the causeway, into Malaysia and up to Melaka on the East coast.

The coach left early. It was comfortable, and we had a great view being ‘upstairs.’ The only problem with that was the poor driver, who had to ask the Teenager to stop tapping his feet while he listened to his i-pod as he was sitting directly below! There was ‘in-coach entertainment’ in the shape of screens in the seat backs and a friendly guide who looked after us and provided some local information.

I was so excited as we crossed the bridge. How would I feel? What would it be like to be on Malaysian soil after all this time? First, we had to go through Singaporean immigration. This was a slow but efficient process, in a clean and shiny immigration hall much like an airport. All very serious and polished. We got back on the coach but, minutes later, were off again with all our luggage to go through Malaysian immigration and customs, or Imigresen dan Kastam. This was a different experience entirely. Malaysia is a lovely country and the people are warm and friendly but it is not renowned for its efficiency. We queued for quite a while, pulling our wheelie cases, in the sunshine alongside landscaping. There was a noticeable amount of litter scattered around, drawing our attention after a couple of days in pristine Singapore.

Eventually we crowded into the rather old fashioned immigration hall and one by one were allowed through, having provided scans of our thumb prints. We then wheeled into the customs hall where we lugged our bags onto the conveyor belt to be x-rayed, then off again, half-watched by bored looking officials. I knew I was back in Malaysia!

The coach set off. I was impressed by the improvement in the roads over the decades. There are now modern highways with frequent stops for tolls. The single carriageway, potholed roads I used to know made travelling time-consuming and sometimes risky. Now I understood why travelling by coach in Malaysia was a now a very reasonable option. There was not a lot of interesting scenery. Malaysia is full of trees. In the more remote parts, the trees make up tropical rain forest, and of course, left to its own devices, nature would take over very quickly and the rain forest would spread. The part of the country we were travelling in, however, is cultivated. We drove through plantation after plantation, alternating palm oil trees, rubber trees and some banana trees, plus no doubt other trees that I did not recognise. I’ll be honest; once you’ve seen a few trees, it’s not really interesting. That didn’t matter to me. I remembered being bored by miles and miles of trees as a teenager. I was extremely happy to have this experience again.

Half way to Melaka, we stopped at a service station. There was a newsstand with magazines in four languages, reflecting the unique cultural mix of the country, and a large hall with stalls inside selling all different sorts of food. I went to the loo and had my first experience for a long time of a proper Asian toilet, ie a hole in the ground with places to put your feet. Ah yes, this was definitely home!

I sat on the coach, wondering how I was feeling and what this whole experience would mean for me, in the fullness of time. How would it change me and what would I learn? Would I be upset by the changes? Would I find it hard to leave?

Honestly, I wasn’t sure, that day, how I was feeling. I was overwhelmed by the knowledge that, finally, finally, I was in my old home, on actual Malaysian soil. And I opened myself up to those questions, happy to wait for them to be answered in whatever time it might take. I felt grateful that I knew to be open and wait, that I was patient enough to let the answers and possibly the resolution come, rather than decide myself, perhaps too quickly, what it all meant.