Road to Hell

---

So there we were, stood outside what had been our humble abode for the past seven days excluding the time spent on the mountain, The wonderful “Rose Cabin”, a mixture of “Faulty Towers” meets “Acorn Antiques” but with a Malaysian twist. We had been informed in extreme broken English / International sign language that we could get a bus from outside the hotel and towards Sandakan. We estimated that this would take us about five hours; well the calculation was done on the Bornean method of travel which has to take on board the age of the transport, the amount of nicotine consumed by the driver and the road system which was designed and built to put passengers in as much danger as possible. We had deciphered that there would be several buses from our earlier conversation but were also informed that as it was the start of the school holidays the buses may well be very busy. The volume of traffic roared passed us, with trucks and glaring masculine eyes being the main type of sight. We took it in shifts to attract the buses attention as we were still feeling the effects of our climb we meant that we walked like we were “John Wayne Bobbitt” - Ouch!

The first of the buses appeared and seemed to accelerate as it passed us with the driver only having the gall to wave at us, Emma informed me at this time that the alert technique that I was using was not noticeable enough. So after being told the right way to get someone’s attention I stood there for another 45 mins, just waiting for bus number two. Number two arrived and the conclusion was the same, a wave and smile from the driver. Now if you were working the streets this would not be such a bad conclusion, however this was not our chosen profession and by this time we were dying to get off this mountain. Number three roared past after an hours wait and it got to the point where me and Em thought that something drastic had to happen. We looked at the map and realised that there was a town called “Ranaus” between us and Sandakan, maybe if we got there then the buses would more positive to our predicament. So still with my hand out in the traffic from the last failed bus stop we got our first experience of Bornean magic. No, no not the Paul Daniels / Debbie Magee kind but a lovely soul called “Jackie” who stopped in his white van to give us a lift.

Now at this juncture may I ask all of the people who love and care for me and Em to stop reading, it will be for your own good.

Why are you all still reading!!! That is just not nice, surely some of you like us?

Anyway to explain, we may have hitched a lift in Borneo, one the most unsettled countries in the world. You have to make snatch decisions sometimes - did I mean to say snatch?. Our hitching was a great success, cheap price; safe driver and he had a van load of premiership football shirts in the back but no offer of a freebie.

Arriving in Ranaus made us question if we would be better back up the mountain, I now know where people go when they are fed up with downtown LA because it has got too safe. It was a shack of old buildings, toothless wonders and an underhand feeling that you were going to be mugged at any point. We stood by the bus stop and gathered our thoughts. It was now about three in the afternoon and we still had another four and a half hours to get to Sandakan.

As Em and I stood there in this pit of debauchery we looked around for a glimmer of hope. It was one of the aspects of travelling that I feared the most, being left in a far way place and not really having a clue how you were going to get out of there, obviously the other fear was waking up tomorrow and still walking like John Wayne with callipers. We then saw a white car appear in our peripheral vision, the window wound down and a Western voice echoed out of the car “Where are you guys off too?” We replied that our destination was Sandakan and by this point the man had stepped out of the vehicle and was walking towards us. The man replied “Yeh, mmm, Sandakan, that seems like a cool place I think I will go there, do you want a lift?” So I looked across at Em and we kind of checked the guy out (not like that but his butt was lovely - he must workout). The man stood about six feet tall and wore casual clothes and had a face like a spitting image puppet but with acne, this fantastic ensemble was topped off with a classic pair of Wayfarer Ray Bans. You know the ones; I think that Robert Palmer had the backing singers where them in the Addicted to Love video. O….my….word, did I just type that, I feel ashamed and embarrassed but any who you can picture the guy. With a quick nod of approval and the pending doom of spending a night in Ranaus we decided to go with the guy, who we were introduced as “Kirk” - ha ha ha he is named after a Star Trek character. Obviously the man was a ‘septic…..’, you tell them from a mile off, they are usual the ones standing on their own (Septic is cockney rhyming slang - look it up if you don’t get it).

Kirk quickly informed us that he had to go back to his place to pick up his back pack, so we loaded the car with our ruck sacks, starting another adventure. Em was in the back and I was next to the Kirkmister - his name still makes me chuckle. Kirk had been staying in a place called Poring Hot Springs which were natural baths that the lonely planet gave a good right up about and the septic agreed. As we were “en route” to Poring, Kirk did the traditional thing of introducing a bit about himself, where he was from and why he was travelling. The typical conversation when you meet someone for the first time, oh yeh, he also told us in the first fifteen minutes of driving that he is being chased by the CIA. I must repeat “ THE CIA” - the central intelligence agency. Now this came to be a bit of a shock as you can imagine but when you are so close, in proximity, to the person telling you the story you can’t burst into fit’s of laughter. Another reason you can’t is that he was being deadly serious. Over the next forty minutes or until we reached his lodgings Kirk explained that as part of his post graduate certificate in Political Science (I think that he studied more pharmaceutical science of the recreational sense), he wrote a paper on George Bush Junior. Now this paper outlined that the president of the USA had been involved in some underhand dealings etc. Really do you think so, what would call the Iraq war -that’s another rant. So Kirk outlined that he had had many visits from the CIA and they had tampered with his stuff on many occasions, you know the type of things, getting your laptop stolen, getting your emails copied, your car bugged and so on. Kirk even thought that they visited him while he was in Central America on a camping trip. At this point we were looking around the car for empty bottles of medication or sharp implements.

Once we arrived at his digs and he got his stuff it gave us the chance to check that we were both on the same page still. An initial fit of nervous giggles about the situation that we were in turned into a more direct question session of “Shall we bail now?” We both felt reasonably safe, Kirk did not seem threatening but just the most paranoid man in the world. So as Kirk returned with his stuff, fishing rod and all, we got on the move towards Sandakan. From watching American TV I was aware that most of the cars over the pond are automatic, well Kirk displayed what I can only describe as the worst driving performance since Lauda hit the wall. The problem was the gears in his admittance; I believed that there were some motor neurone deficiencies also. Kirk enforced our opinion that he was a couple of cans short of a six pack with his navigational ability. He managed to get us lost, nearly stepping into the jungle, within five minutes of Poring. Me and Em had informed him of the problem but he must have had some cotton wool in the lugs. After a heated exchange with a local who did not “speako the lingo” we informed Kirk that we knew the direction and got us back on track. The monologue of Kirk continued but mainly covered the CIA, American politics and some “gals” that he had met in a seedy place in KK (he truly believed that they liked him and not the dollar).

Kirk’s driving was getting worse, not only did he have no clutch control but steering around the potholes in the road and cornering safely were becoming difficult. I knew that when I looked in the mirror of the sun visor to see Emma almost in tears, perhaps with the conversation or driving, that something had to change and it was at this point that Kirk for the final time hit the grass verge and nearly flipped the car. Well, I flipped. Demanding for the car to stop straight away and cursing his inability to drive we came to a standstill on the side of the road. Using mainly four letter words, I thought it would help him understand my point of view, I stated that I would drive his hire car. Kirk agreed, who cared? At least he was not behind the wheel! We got going again and Kirk rambled on about feeling dizzy and thanking us for our company but at that stage it was a means to an end. The Kirk mobile had change into Smith ownership. Now I know that a lot of you are thinking that it was probably safer under the ‘septic’, I will ignore you lot.

After a couple of hours we decided to have a “pissing stop” (Cambodian taxi drive direct quote) and something to eat. We stopped in a dead arse town called Telupid, where the women looked like men and the men looked like they had never seen a woman. We ordered safe with Nasi Goreng, Kirk followed and then we were giving an insight into his driving madness as he removed his Wayfarers for the first time. The man did not open his eyes; he looked like Ray Charles’s white doppelganger. Seriously, one or two words would be uttered before the lids would shut again and rubbing of the face would occur. It explained a lot but was still another point on the weird scale for him and he had scored mighty high already, even beating that naked Turkish man playing the banjo! He could strum.

We our bellies full and without letting the keys out of my hand we started our journey again, with the hope that a hotel room and a shower would bring us back to reality. It took a good couple of hours to reach the outskirts of Sandakan and by that time Em and I had spoken maybe three words each and Kirk had filled in the blanks. We selected a main street to look for a hotel and as you can imagine Kirk opted to stay in the same place. We fell upon the Ramai Hotel which was designed by the same guy who built the block of flats down the bay near Asda, exactly, the theme was uninteresting. After parking the car and with the bellhop leading our way to the room we thought that the nightmare was over, as the key was turned we were greeted by a number of cockroaches scurrying across the floor. New room please. With our stuff in the second room and the preliminary check of the bed sheets, we looked at each other and just sighed, hugged and thanked that we had been looked after that day. This has to be the weirdest, scary and downright bizarre day of our lives, but then there was that time that I came back from football practice early to see Frank dressed up like a Roman Centurion and Jen in her Princess Leia Bikini (the one with the gold - you know) but the counselling has blocked the image from my memory.

Kirk found out our room number and popped the question that neither of us wanted to hear, “Fancy a bite to eat?” All of the particles inside my body wanted to tell him to Foxtrot Oscar but as deep down I new that he was a sad man who was just a bit lonely and of course stark raving bonkers I thanked him for the invite. He had spied out a place across the road, as you went into it you thought that it was a strip joint but fortunately it was just a unpopulated place with beer, good enough for us.

We woke the next morning and quickly ducked out of the hotel, avoiding Kirk, to have a look around Sandakan, the local bus took us into town. This being a minibus with no door and about three people to a seat but we were one of the locals. Sandakan was bombed in the war and it looked like the recovery had not yet started. With fast-food joints, dodgey hotels and a lot of rubbish we again wondered why we had had rushed to the city. We walked around the place and checked out the non-sights, saw a massive car crash and decided that the cities over here were not up to much. That evening was repeat of the last and we were treated to the company of Stevie Wonder with a twitch, or to you and me, Kirk.

We had arranged our departure to the Jungle resort, and Kirk was heading back to KK, so getting up the next day was a blissful experience. Something that cannot be said about the past few days, however with hindsight you can look back and think that it makes travelling when you have some stories to tell. Kirk was a weird character but he helped us out in a jam so I am grateful for that, but if you guys see Texan sat at the bar and his conversation is about the CIA maybe the pub next door would be a good idea. Trust me I date a doctor.

---

Comments

[Wheaters]

Hey guys. The story about Kirk made me laugh out loud - even though I've already heard it! And what's with the jibe about flats near Asda hey!!! You're talking about my home there matey. Anyway, missing you already....wish I was still there with you..... xx