Journey to the East - Part I

Whenever there is long public holidays, our holiday destination will be at Kota Bharu, my in-laws place. I can't complain about this, in fact I think it's fair enough as we go back to my hometown almost once a month. We go back to KB perhaps 3-4 times in a year. I love going back to KB, I love seeing my in-laws but the the journeys is very very dreadful. On normal time, it takes at least 10 hours to travel from Melaka to KB. On festive seasons, public holidays, it'll take way longer than that. Once, when I was still staying in KL, it took us 14 hours on our return journey from KB. That was during Hari Raya Haji time. And imagine travelling with 2 babies....oh! It was so torturing.

We have planned to go back to KB on the Chinese New Year holidays for so long. The last time we went to KB was during Hari Raya Puasa. I planned to take leave the day before CNY and the day after the last day of the long weekends to avoid the heavy road traffic. But having a 'Hitler' boss, I was only allowed to take one day leave, so I chose the day before CNY.

Unfortunately, my hb got fever two days before we planned to go back to KB. And it appeared to be a bad one...he laid on bed helplessly. Though he went to see doctor, took the medicine, he was still weak. I told him, if he still not recovered, we should cancel our balik kampung trip. I can offer myself to drive but it's a long journey, he was not well so who's going to handle the twins? Besides, I hardly drive on the KL-KB route, and it is not a good idea to drive the whole journey off especially on this festive season. The night before the day, I just packed our stuff. If we were to go back, we planned to hit the road as early as 3 am in the morning. Hb said if he still couldn't get up the next morning, we cancel the trip.

By 2.30 am I woke up and asked my hb whether we going back or not. He convinced me that he was ok though I saw him still not fully ok. I said I will drive for as long as I could and he should sleep in the meantime. By 3.30 am we hit the road. Surprisingly, I didn't feel sleepy at all. Actually I hate driving at night but it was a good idea to be moving at the wee hours. Not much vehicles and it's cold. The twins also were sleeping soundly. By 6.30 am we reached Raub and stopped for Subuh prayer. After solat, my hb said he felt good enough to drive so he took over the wheel.

When we reached Kuala Lipis, the vehicles started queuing up. This is where an expert driver is very much required to over take the lorries and this is what I'm not good at. That Gua Musang route is very dangerous with sharp corners and hilly areas. I always feel my heart thumping so hard whenever my hb doing over taking. So who says a co-pilot can sleep? And with accidents rate is so high and the route is famously known as accident areas, I could never able to close my eyes when travelling back to KB.

Indeed, we were stuck in a massive traffic jam when reaching Machang. Apparently, there was a deadly accident. I didn't dare to look thoroughly as we were passing the wrecked vehicles but it was obvious there were people succumbed to death as we could see the police typical truck that normally carries dead bodies.

Finally we reached KB at 2.00 pm, happily greeted by my in-laws.