TRAVELLER‘S TALE: Midnight run to Penang

Hitching a ride on a lorry laden with newspapers turned out to be a great learning experience

WHEN I was in my 20s, I would do anything to save a few ringgit. My then-girlfriend was in Penang, so I would make periodic visits there from Kuala Lumpur.

One day, a colleague told me I could save on transport costs by hitching a ride on the company’s lorry which delivered freshly printed newspapers to Penang every night.

The particular lorry which I boarded did not leave until 11.30pm. I rode with the driver and co-driver in the wide front seat.

It was my first time travelling in this manner and I was more than thrilled. In half an hour, we were barreling down the long and winding road in the vicinity of Templer Park to Rawang. The North-South Highway did not exist then.

It was an exhilarating yet frightening experience sitting next to a driver who thought nothing of hitting the pedal in a lorry fully laden with the following day’s newspapers. I kept assuring myself that he knew the route well.

There were numerous times when I envisioned myself flying headlong through the wide windscreen into the darkness beyond the trees and tumbling down a ravine.

I held hard and fast to the sides of the vinyl seat. Courage and fatigue left me. My watch showed it was past midnight.

Somewhere along the journey, when all three of us were reduced to watching the white line in the centre of the trunk road, there was a sudden loud explosion.

A screeching noise followed. The lorry veered. Within seconds, we skidded to an abrupt halt in a ditch in the middle of nowhere. “What happened,” I asked desperately. Now my eyes were wide open.

It turned out to be a puncture in the front right tyre. All three of us got down to assess the situation. It was pitch dark.

“Where are we exactly?” I asked again. “Probably somewhere in Tanjung Malim,” replied the driver.
Naturally, the immediate solution was to fix the punctured tyre. That would be a challenge as the lorry was leaning to one side. Almost immediately, the driver realised that he did not have a hydraulic jack for the job.

The question in my head at that time was “what kind of lorry man does not carry a jack in his vehicle?” Of course, I dared not ask the driver.

The two men managed to wave down a passing lorry. We found out to our dismay that he too did not have a jack. For a few moments, I thought my final destination could turn out to be the edge of the jungle in a secluded part of Tanjung Malim.

But life is full of surprises. Calmly, the driver said he had an idea. He took out a three-foot long iron bar from his tool box. It was about 4cm thick.

When he saw the curious expression on my face, he said: “We can still jack up the lorry with this bar. I have done this before, when I was in the army.”

It was only then that I knew he was a former soldier. What he did next changed my perception of how rugged truck drivers survived on the highway every day.

The co-driver fired up the engine and the driver placed the iron bar at an angle with one end beneath the front bumper. With extreme caution and precision, the lorry moved forward.

The aim was to make the front wheel “sit” on the thick iron rod and make it “stand” so that the punctured tyre would be off the ground. If I had not seen it, I would not have believed that it could be done.

After three attempts, it worked!

Suddenly I spotted some lights floating in the nearby rubber plantation. Ghosts! Who knows what happens after midnight in the jungle-like environment?

When I pointed out the floating lights to the driver, he replied that those “apparitions” were just rubber tappers with lamps attached to their foreheads.

I looked at my watch. It was 4am. Seeing how rubber tappers worked during pre-dawn hours made me realise that not everybody had the privilege of working in air-conditioned offices.

The thought of tigers, snakes and other creepy-crawlies entered and stayed in my mind. Never again would I have any negative thoughts about these rubber tappers.

After the tyre was replaced, we were on our way again but not before I told the driver that I wanted to sleep at the back of the lorry where the newspapers were stacked.

Since the lorry was totally and securely covered by tarpaulin, there was no danger of me falling over.

And so I slept as the lorry made its way to Penang.

The lorry was supposed to be on the island by 6am or at the latest 7am but when we arrived, it was already noon. It had been a really long journey.

I alighted to find myself covered in dust, soot and other particles from the tarpaulin. I looked like a chimney sweep.

That journey was a great learning experience and what’s more important, it didn’t cost me a single sen.