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Robbers and a bus ticket

The driver of the white hatchback told me he lived nearby and said those 3 smokers were the local petty criminals and needed to feed their drug habits. He was certain I was about to get robbed. When I heard that, a shiver ran down my spine and I immediately warmed to the man.

He made enquiries as to my destination, timeframes and more. I answered and he replied, “I want Allah to bless me – I think you foreigners call it karma – so I’m going to buy you a bus ticket all the way to Miri on the border of Brunei and I’ll supply you with enough food for the journey”. I protested, feeling this man probably needed his money. But he insisted. I gave in and accepted. He selflessly drove me all the way to the local ticketing office, produced a ticket for me and then walked me into the local take-away. A quarter of an hour later, I was on a very long bus trip, vastly grateful to yet another amazingly friendly stranger I’d met on the island of Borneo.

On the bus to Miri, heading away from troubleThe red coach liner rolled out of Serian town through a rather modern and orderly Malaysian landscape. The wheels kept rolling right through the night, with only short pit stops at bus interchanges and public toilets. Palm oil plantations, rice paddies and cement brick houses pitted the hilly landscape for hundreds and hundreds of km. City after town after village streamed past the rain-whipped bus windows taking the form of blurs of yellow-tinted lights in the night.

At 6am, the big bus engine rattled to its final halt in the northern Sarawak city of Miri and sleepy baggage-laden passengers disembarked in silence. I hadn’t expected to cross east Malaysia this fast. But at least I was very far from my would-be attackers on the roadside of Serian. Neither had I anticipated trying to sleep across bus seats cleverly designed to ensure no human could ever lie down there comfortably for more than 20 seconds. But I had drifted into and out of light sleep many times, and knew I’d had at least 4 hours’ good rest. My mind was set on Brunei Darussalam next.

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