24 JAN 09

I've been in Kota Kinabalu for a little while now, a city in the north of Sabah. We've got deadlines and things looming, so we're here to use other people's internet connections, laptops and houses, although there was a little confusion about that to begin with.

On arrival in KK we were met by our friend Farina who's been keeping an eye on Boss Benoit's house over Christmas. Chloe and I could become joint Queen of 'The Land of Confusion and Misunderstanding', because we'd asked if we could stay with Farina, who we thought was staying at our Boss' house. She wasn't. So we ended up living there on our own. Naturally, Benoit was a little surprised to find this out, but he kindly let us stay and water the plants anyway. Just as well really as I'm not up to date with current squatters' rights in Malaysia.

Since then we've swapped houses, been to the jungle, returned to the city and swapped houses again, but it's not worth going into details! For the last couple of days however, someone has trusted me enough to drive their pick-up truck when we need to. To be honest I'm quite amazed, but very grateful as the house we're in is a little way out of town. There are, of course, several differences between driving a 2006/7 Toyota Hilux 4x4 in Sabah and driving a 1965 Austin A35 van-conversion in Dorset, and I'll try my best to summarise them...

1. Morphology (to use a biological term). The Austin is simple. I know where the handbrake and indicator switch are - they're in the right place; on the right and in the centre of the dashboard respectively. The Toyota prefers to conform to modern social ideals with a handbrake on the left and the indicator switch on a stick. A stick which I've been known to confuse with the windscreen wiper controls so that the wipers go into overdrive when all I really want to do is turn left.
2. Size. Ozzie the Austin is small. He's a van, so larger than his saloon counterparts, but he's small all the same, and that's marvellous for fitting into tight parking spots in Bournemouth. The Toyota is not small. Driving the Toyota feels like driving a tank, although I'm assuming that the Hilux is easier to maneuvre than a Challenger II. The saving grace is that the roads themselves also seem to be wider and longer, so relatively speaking I suppose there's no difference.
3. Other drivers. There are bad drivers everywhere in the world. The thing to adapt to is the different types of bad driving. In Vietnam it's the 'stop for nothing and no-one approach' that worries me. They swerve around obstacles forcing the person behind to swerve around them, which forces the person behind to swerve around them and... you get the picture; it's one big swerving mess. In the U.K. it's the combination of impatient drivers and those with such a lack of common sense that I'm sure if somebody were to remind them that they were in a moving vehicle they'd probably take the central reservation out in surprise. Here, and this is a generalisation based on my journeys to date, there seems to be confusion over the purpose of indicators. I'd been under the impression from a very young age that indicators were there to indicate, or signal, to let other drivers know what you're about to do. It's an ingenious concept which has the potential to stop people from crashing into each other when changing lanes, overtaking, leaving roundabouts and joining a main road to name but a few. Yesterday I was amazed to find that not only do a lot of people ignore the little sticky-out thingy that produces orange, flashing lights on the side of their car, but some go as far as to put the bloody things on after the event. We were forced to screech to a halt on a dual carriageway by a car with one headlight making a U-Turn into the fast lane we were travelling along. The daredevil Perodua in question very nearly entered in a puff of smoke with a loud 'bang' as accompaniment, but another plus point for the Toyota is that it has very good brakes. Anyway, the point is that this guy only decided to indicate once he'd joined the flow of moving traffic and I'd recovered from my semi heart attack.

The fact that I don't know the city very well hasn't caused too much of a problem. We've had a few hiccups, like a 12 mile diversion to Tuaran and back and driving around the block three times to find entrances to places, but other than that it's not been too bad, thanks to Google Earth which is always consulted before setting out. Last night I was on the verge of being lost (or at the very least confused) when I drove through a tunnel that we certainly hadn't encountered on the way out. 'Ah well, tiada masaala, pas de probleme, no worries!' I thought as I joined a queue of very slow moving traffic. I always think too soon.

A gaggle of policemen were pulling over cars of their choice into a little coned-off area at the side of the road, and of course they chose me. 'Okay, calm, I have my licence, insurance documents and a small amount of Malay to work with, just don't panic!' I muttered to myself, or Chloe, whoever was listening. I rolled to a standstill next to a slight but intimidating man in a blue uniform and wound down the window. Except that there's another difference between and A35 and a Hilux - the Hilux has electric windows and the switches are all next to each other. And it was dark... so the driver's side rear window opened perfectly and the wall of glass betwen me and the unamused policeman remained firmly in place. I smiled apologetically and pressed the other switch. I still wasn't able to talk to the policeman, but there was a nice breeze of fresh air flowing through the newly created thoroughfare between the rear windows. Oh dear. I eventually found the correct switch and handed over my documents. Not entirely sure what they were looking for, and trying to salvage what I could from the situation I thought I'd ask for directions for a particular road. The policeman looked confused, said 'yes' and waved me on. I don't think he could be bothered with the stupid tourists anymore...

...I'd only gone and asked him for directions to the road we were travelling on!