Getaway Delays

Monday, December 7 - We hitched a ride south to KL with Junkii’s sister and her new hubby on Monday, but not without a few delays.

1. Sales Pitch: Before we even left the house, right in the middle of trying to pack our bags, a friend of Junkii’s family dropped by to try to sell the Canadians on a plan to buy into a franchising venture for a line of pharmacies called Cosway. Neither of us is at all interested in owning our own line of convenience stores, but she wouldn’t hear of it. Still, we didn’t want to be rude, so we had to sit and listen to how much money we could make and blah blah blah. She clearly hadn’t done her homework because she didn’t know how much it would cost to set up a franchise space in Canada, let alone know anything at all about the rules in Canada for approving products for sale – and as far as we can see, the Cosway brand hasn’t been approved for sale in Canada. Whatever, we finally had to cut her off and send her home. We needed to pack!


2. Tyre Trouble: We got as far as the edge of Ipoh and stopped for gas when Junkii’s Brother-in-law noticed the back tire had a bulge in it. So off we went to the nearest service centre and bought a new tire (or tyre in Malaysia). It only cost about C$60 for the tire – a Goodyear – and Junkii’s dad said that was expensive. Guess that’s the benefit of living in a rubber-producing nation.


3. Rain Delay: Every day it rains for about 30 minutes late in the afternoon. Unfortunately, it hit us just as we were on our way into KL on Monday. And this was a bad one. The sky turned nearly pitch black and we really couldn’t see much of anything on the road – very dangerous given the tendency for speed among Malaysian drivers.

But in the end, we made it, grabbed some dinner and crashed. Okay, first we tried finding a bottle of wine, but we were too late and, having failed in our quest, we crashed to prepare for our day in KL.