We were Moving

We Were Moving. A bit on the bus ride from Singapore to KL. The bus ride between Singapore and KL is unremarkable. After crossing the straits separating the island from the mainland, its just oil palm plantations most of the way through. The bus is a bullet in flight, tunnelling through the darkness. Although I’ve done it dozens of times before, the 5-hour journey is never the same for me. Its a journey of feelings. Sometimes I miss my family greatly, and sometimes I loathe to leave work behind. Always, its coloured by a feeling of dread, the bus ride is like crossing the river Styx: a journey to a different life. I watch the different people on the bus, the people working at both immigration departments. I try to identify the Singaporeans, listen to their accents, notice their behaviour, but nothing works. In Johor Bahru, where the immigration is overloaded, you can just wave your Malaysian passport and walk through. Because everybody was walking through, the self-checkout machines were like a trap. They were supposed to make immigration faster. The buses plying the Singapore-KL route always stop at Yong Peng, a town off the highway, at two restaurants catering for the inbound buses. One of the restaurants used to be open-air and had really bad food. This time, the owners renovated. They closed it up, installed some form of air-conditioning and invited more stalls to open up. More stalls means more jobs. It was definitely more crowded than the last time I was here. My cell phone alarm went off at 2.30am. I was minutes outside Kuala Lumpur. I looked out of the window and I saw low-lying buildings of no worth. Well, its not that they have no worth, they are just not notable. They’re everywhere in a developing country. They’re a sign of urbanization. The unstoppable infection grows larger every day. The KL bus terminal was already closed for the night, so the bus drops us off just outside. Taxi drivers, with their cabs parked neatly outside the entrance of the bus terminal, try to look for fares among the alighting passengers. A bunch of Malay youth in their early twenties were just sitting on the pavement railing. I saw their cigarette butts. I saw the trash lying about the street. I knew it was home. Malaysia. Although the bus terminal was closed, it wasn’t empty. People were sitting on the staircases, on the benches, young women, old men, people of all races. I crossed the street to the 7-11 where I called my mom to pick me up. There was a make-shift cafe right outside the 7-11, lit by the yellow incandescent street lights. Two buskers, on guitar, were trying to make a living. I took a seat at an empty table. I felt bad because an Indian family didn’t want to share tables, so I ordered two drinks to make up for lost business. Two Malay boys jumped into the empty seats across me. They joked with the waiter. Since I had nothing to do, I could only eavesdrop; they talked about rent and living expenses, driving licenses, going back to their hometowns. They obviously were not from KL. The closer boy was from Kelantan, and he preferred trains to buses. “Naik keretapi lagi syok,” or “The trains are more fun,” he said. “Cheaper too.” Distracted, I stared across the street at the bus terminal. It had giant ventilation shafts three meters wide running up its sides to vent bus exhaust. Now these ventilation shafts where covered with a huge red cell phone provider advertisement from top to bottom, repeated on every shaft. They made it look like the terminal was wrapped in advertisement. Or caged in it. My mom finally pulled up in her car. I threw my bags in, and hopped in. “Time to go to our new home!” she chirped. My sister was there in the car too. “But not everything’s there yet.” We were moving.