Travelling Man

Setting off at 4.00 pm from Melaka, I wondered whether we might have something of an epic journey ahead of us before the welcome familiarity of Still Road, and meeting a substantial jam after Machap, only two-thirds of the way back, it looked as if we might be in one of those situations characterised as memorable for all the wrong reasons. The fact that there'd been bit of a hold-up at Tuas on the way over on Friday, even though we were there in the very early evening, added to my sense of doom. I surmised that a lot of Malays were heading to Malaysia over the weekend to visit family for Hari Raya, like ourselves.

Our last few trips north have tended to involve jams, snarls and the like, with some particularly irritating situations in which we'd chosen the wrong lane and felt life's unfairness weighing us down, and I think all that was fueling my pessimism. But at least I was mentally prepared.

For nothing - as it turned out. After about half-an-hour of stop-start stuff the highway, all two lanes of it, mysteriously began to clear and we sailed through Tuas to sunny Singapore, arriving at the door at 8.00 pm. My guess is that we'd been caught in a lot of Malaysian traffic comprising those visiting relatives and those heading home to Johore after spending time in villages to the north, it being the last day of the week's public holiday in Malaysia.

So this is all much ado about nothing, I suppose, except to serve as a reminder to be grateful when the journey goes well - which, as long as you get there in one piece, is always.