KIWI RIDER 02 2020 VOL1 | Page 38

some of the moves car drivers made seemed ‘bold’ they were actually pretty aware of what was going on around them and once you figured out the rules, it was easy to make progress without fearing you were going to get taken out at every junction. Yes, cars will pull out from side streets, but in doing so, they hug the kerb and leave plenty of room for you to pass them before they pull out into traffic – which may or may not be accompanied by the use of indicators… but you get used to that too. At least they drive on the same side of the road as us (most of the time) so that was one thing we didn’t have to worry about. Escaping the metropolis took about half an hour. Once we got out of the city, everything changed and we found ourselves in a green lush countryside with moderate traffic and excellent roads. Apparently the Malaysians know how to lay a fine bit of tarmac and they don’t seem much invested in straight lines so curves, lots of them, are the order of play. They’re also well signposted although they could save a lot of money not putting up speed limits because no one takes much notice of them. That’s not to say there’s wanton or reckless speeding, it’s just that for the most part drivers seem to drive to the conditions and sometimes that’s higher than the posted speed limit. And from time to time, you might get stuck behind a truck that’s going MUCH slower than the posted limit and if it’s in a tight section of road, you may be stuck there for a little while. As the day wore on, the temperature crept up above 30°C and it’s worth mentioning riding gear at this point because there’s a bit of a balancing act to be done between wearing a sensible amount of protection... but not wearing a mobile sauna. MMG did have clothing to hire but we decided to take our own with us, and whilst that’s a bit of a pain when it comes to packing we found that we were able to take a good set of gear without having to worry about airline weight limits or how far our suitcases “ OUR GUIDES WOULD A PULL US UP BETWEEN IF THERE WAS SOMETH INTERESTING ON THE 36 KIWI RIDER