Traffic is one thing that is tricky to master. The motor cyclists here obey no known rules and according to one tennis player who happens to be a reconstructive surgeon, his business sadly is booming.
I think its the rainy season at the moment. People have told us different times but to me if it rains like this, it must be the rainy season. We had two tennis matches rained off in the one day this week by torrents. So yes, rainy season. This said it deters the bikers not one whit. They still cut in and out all the time, overtake on both sides, head down the road any which way they please, go through red lights, green, you name it. I'm more concerned for them than me as at least I am in a car.
As for the cars though, I do sympathise a little and that is largely down to the road markings or rather the quirkiness of them. You could be driving down a 2 lane highway quite comfortably and come to a bend when the left hand lane simply goes straight on and disappears. But fear not for on the right hand side a new lane appears as if by magic, from nowhere so after that curious bit, you are driving again on a 2 lane highway.
Quite why the lanes cannot go around corners is beyond me but you see it everywhere. Cars therefore or so it seems simply ignore the lanes and just act as though they existed in a rational world. But then again last night there were 5 cars driving abreast in a 3 lane highway so maybe not...
The best advice so far received is to stay on a straight and narrow course as much as possible and let everyone else mill around you as they wish... the subtext of course being and keep your fingers crossed.
Custom is another that is beset with pitfalls. Malaysia is a muslim country but with many ethnic minorities, the largest of which is the Chinese. Penang is largely Chinese so is considered different to the rest of the country and before the general election in May was an opposition territory. Now with the first change of government since Independence, Penang is no longer an opposition state so who knows how things will work out now? Will they now become mainstream and therefore somehow different? I am not up to scratch in this department yet.
At the tennis club where I played recently, there was a weekend tournament that I entered. Started at 9.30 and finished around 3.30 so straight through the torrid heat and humidity of the day. Around 1pm a maintenance crew gathered together and as one marched onto the courts to start brushing them. They are a green felt surface with sand sprinkled over them to aid drying after rain and are really effective so far as that goes. But the sand does occasionally tend to clump so if the ball hits one such clump, it rolls along the ground or bounds off sideways or something. So the courts do need to be brushed. And that takes place at 1pm each day. That is the job of the groundsmen. These guys in fact.
So we had the interesting spectacle of a tournament going on with most courts in use and a crew of groundsmen brushing them... at the same time... to smooth out the sand and take away the leaves. I had visions of Federer playing at Wimbledon against Nadal with some guy wandering out onto Centre Court with a bucket and paintbrush to touch up the lines...
"Don't worry about me, guv. Just play on. I'll go round you."
I made the mistake of mentioning the oddness of this situation and was met with stony faces and "well, it is their job" kind of looks.
And of course they are right and I am wrong. This is just how things work here in Penang. My brief sabbatical overseas had made me forget. I'll remember soon though.
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