A Relief

22 Ramadhan, 1439

When I saw the tailback yesterday from the Malaysian Immigration after the bridge at Tuas, stretching back a good two kilometres, I thought we were doomed to be stuck in a jam for at least a couple of hours. The prospect of dealing with this, followed by the drive up to Kuala Lumpur, was, to say the least, daunting. And this following a very sweaty morning preparing to leave, with the sun at its fiercest for these parts.

In the event, the jam proved almost illusory. There was a jam certainly, but it involved only the massive number of lorries and buses wending their ways north. They should have been occupying the inside lane of the highway to the customs, but had spread to occupy two lanes and, temporarily, had managed to stop the cars seeking to make their way along the outside lane to the fairly quiet lanes at Immigration set aside for them. We got through in less than five minutes to my very considerable relief.

It wasn't exactly an easy journey after that, given the problems I'm currently experiencing with my back. When we finally disembarked at Bukit Antarabangsa it took me five minutes to straighten up so I could walk. But none of this seemed particularly significant in the light of the possible jam we had avoided earlier. I can still feel the sense of relief one day later, which shows you just how narrow one's concerns can be when it comes to dealing with the problems that life happily sends our way.