Time check: 5:07pm

Listening to: On My Way Home –Enya

Last day of the trip, and I’m feeling a little more than sore that it’s almost over.

All the planned activities have been done. We’ve eaten, drunk, ran and slept our way through the trip, where we all had a good time. I’m sure many share my feelings with the contentment of the trip’s goal being met: We ate a worthy amount, and the others say that it was worth the money.

This morning, the lethargy of my room mate infected me for a bit, deeming that it was a rule that I lazed around a little more.

Slowly, I rose and started packing up. Two bulky plastic bags had become part of my luggage that already consisted of my bag and shoe-bag. I’m no heavyweight, and I don’t think I can sling around two plastic bags with me too.

One contained all the laundry and the other were the goods I purchased for home. The size of each bag, you ask? As large as my bag.

The coach people boarded and hence I resumed my role as the bus nanny.

The first stop we made first was to Ipoh, another state in Malaysia. Due to the late hour I hit the sack, I napped on the coach. When I awoke, I realised that the coach was lumbering about, two cars of the convoy that had split from the group were trailing after us, and the bus guide brought a fact that had me worried.

Immediately the phone was used to call the higher heads of authority. We received contact numbers of the stall we were to visit, and a number of problems came upon us.

1) The stall had a different name by each higher head of authority. One said it was Oon Kee, the other said it was Wong Kee. Close together, but not so.

2) We had no idea where in Ipoh we were. That worried me. That meant that any form of directions can still lead us astray, and the fact that I am weak when it came to direction-following or direction-giving made me feel more uneasy.

3) The people around me were distressed too. I kept my face a stern one, but something of a smile was there. I was told to try to keep them relaxed and happy, but I cannot lie to them that we were lost. A student placed as leader and guardian of the coach, of at least fifteen adults and two children, and they depended on me to solve this little problem we were stuck with.

In the end, I finally made contact with the stall and my Chinese was seriously limited, so the phone was passed to the bus guide who, with his fluent flow of Mandarin, found a solution: a guide would find our coach and show us the way. Clear cut, no nonsense answer, I liked it. I informed the drivers behind us by walkie-talkie, and a five-minute wait found a man on a motorcycle (one of the more popular forms of travel in M’sia) as our guide.

Our mini convoy trailed most obediently behind him, and in no time we found ourselves at the restaurant.

The Ipoh hor fun was fantastic! This dish of silky smooth kway teow (or better termed in here as hor fun) ran down my throat, and it was most delectable to slurp down the long rice noodles. Complimented with the peppery and stock-based soup that the kway teow was served in and taugei (bean sprouts, the little white crunchy shoots) stir-fried in some soya-sauce, and steamed chicken which boasted tender and soft meat.

There was a tau huay (Soya bean curd) stall not too far from the stall, and there I visited after trying a bowl of the aforementioned dish. The bean curd was silky smooth with ginger-based black sugar water, which flavoured the bland white slivers of curd. It was most heavenly sweet and warm, and it felt good to eat too.

I wanted to buy the related food item that came with it, tau huay chwee (soya bean milk), and went to buy it.

I ordered to the lady, “tau huay chwee, tau pau.” (Soya bean milk, take away.)

I received three packets of tau huay instead.

I halted the lady as she packed up the last packet and clarified my order.

She determined that she had given me what I had wanted.

I told here again, tapping a container filled with the drink I had wanted, that I wanted something else.

She got to filling up two drinking plastic bags of the liquid delight. I only wanted one. I just ordered one from the start, and she’s giving me double and even triple of what I wanted.

I halted her at the third plastic bag, and told her I would take the entire lot. I cannot blame her for her error. It must have been a loss of translation somewhere along the line between me and her.

And most obviously, she mistook what I had said for something else.

When I related the event to the coach riders, they all guffawed and pulled my leg incessantly. They all deciphered the joke real quickly.

“tau huay three.”

I was pretty sure that I had not said that.

Three was three. Chwee was chwee.

And, due to the poor standard of oral English there, tree was tree.

Apparently, she thought that “three” was “tree”, and “chwee” was “tree”.

Therefore, the tourist wanted three packets of soya bean curd.

Someone should do something about this “chwee-tree-three” business.

One bag of the drink was given to co-worker Kelvin, and a packet of bean curd to the bus guide. I finished the other bag of drink.

Next pit stop: the Sungai Hot Springs Park, which would be the first hot springs park I have visited. People had the option to soak their entire selves or dip their feet in. The actual spring water temperature was ninety to a hundred degrees, though the thermometer read a hundred and fifty Fahrenheit.

I opted to soak myself in there. The two boys Jordan and Nicholas did the same. Well, we three waded around, and I was comfortable with the water temperature at the first soak while the two cousins had a little difficulty adapting to the temperature.

A waterfall feature there provided us with the opportunity for water to run down our backs, and the old gentleman and a father tried that out. They made space for me, and I did not hesitate to join in.

We must have looked like three birds huddled in a bird fountain, just soaking wet and clearly enjoying it.

The two men were clearly the daredevils, going quite far in their search of the perfect hot spot. They found it, and the old man, apparently the bravest of us three, tried it first.

He leapt clear of the fountain.

We three waded and crouched around the radius of where the water was tolerable, and slowly inched our way into the realm of the scalding water, but not going close, or very close for the men’s part, to the waterfall.

Some of the coach people wanted to try to put their feet into that path of water before it fell on us. I immediately cried that they should desist (part of the reason why I ‘cried’ was that I had stepped too close to the hot water for my like) and one of them tapped the water with his foot. He was convinced, so were the rest, and they searched for another stream.

After a thirty-minute soak, we had our fair share of the water, and the boys and I ploughed and powered our way through the water for the showers.

And that was quite some time ago. The only events that should occur after this is a stop-over for dinner at a rest stop, and on straight home for Singapore. The ETA is around eleven, or midnight at Newton Circus.

I don’t think I can type or think so clearly at that point in time.

So here I wrap up my trip. I’ve had my good time, and I still have activities planned for the next few weeks till the holidays are over. I think I gained weight, if that’s something, and my face had some sun-burn and now my cheekbones are a tint of pink.

Well, the next time a trip like this coops up and I find myself in a situation of boredom; I’m definitely hopping onto the coach again and joining the convoy.

Now, what to do with that last bowl of tau huay?