Walking in Malaysia

Malaysia has the biggest auto market in South East Asia. That's quite reasonable, seeing that the two countries richer than Malaysia in SEA are Singapore and Brunei, and while the latter has too small a population, the former taxes vehicles heavily.

So yeah. Everywhere you go in Malaysia, you'll be greeted by traffic congestion.

I spend 6 hours a week travelling between home and school. That's like 3 hours per journey, a half-an-hour walk between Klang railway station and my home.

Travelling this way is not fun. If I were driving, I would only need a little over one hour for the entire journey. Plus I need to line up for tickets. And wait for the trains.

Yesterday's journey, for example, was terrible. Especially the walking part.

I had quite a number of things with me. As usual, my keys, wallet and phone were in my pocket. I carried a backpack filled with documents and water bottle and pencil case and such. One hand carried a luggage, containing the past week's laundry, and my other hand held a bag filled with a pile of notes for my past two semesters.

The drivers don't respect pedestrians. I was walking at the edge of the road (any more to the side I'd be tumbling down to a drain), but a stupid 4-wheel-drive driver who was driving so freaking fast on the narrow narrow lane still honked at me.

I mean, fine, I don't expect you to give me a ride. Chances of getting robbed in Malaysia is higher than getting a free ride from a stranger.

I don't expect sympathy either. After all, I was only carrying 3 bags totalling about 15kg and this will only increase my stamina, right? Plus, it is half my fault I don't own a car by now.

But the least you could do is to not honk at me just because I don't have a car and was slowing you down by what, 2 seconds? Next time a driver does that someone better be dying in his/her backseat.

And I haven't even started on Malaysian drivers' spitting yet. (Sad to say my dad is one of them.)

Motorcyclists don't respect pedestrians either. So you wait by the traffic lights for it to turn red, then the flow of traffic will stop, and you will get to cross the road. However, it isn't that simple. The first thing you should do once the lights turn red is to wait for the cars to stop. So the cars stopped, but you can't cross yet! You have to wait for the motorcycles to stop. Motorcycles like to worm their way among the sea of the cars into the very very front, and they don't give a damn to pedestrians. They only keep their eyes on the goal - the front of the queue. You have to keep your eyes on them.

Heck, even other pedestrians don't care for you! You're ascending a flight of stairs with heavy stuff on your hands, and there you go, two people ascending the stairs slower than your grandmother can type, yet blocking the entire width of the stairs. I feel like punishing them by asking them to carry my stuff instead. Let's see how slow you wanna move now!

That's not all. Everything sucks! The streetlights were not working and I couldn't clearly see where I was going. The roads are all filled with potholes of mud and rainwater. Bird droppings line the walkway. The workers dug out the mud in the drains and place them on the walkway but didn't pack them away before leaving. Manholes are not covered. The roads are dirty - fliers and spits and gums and cans everywhere. The air of the busy road is badly polluted and smelly.

So you think walking is easy? Think again!