Have you ever travelled along a winding road with 60 turnings to reach a place? Well, I have.
When I served in Jerantut as a young teacher, I used to visit my friend Yong Cheng Suan who lived in Raub, 96 kilometres away from where I stayed. I had to negotiate 60 twists and turns before reading Raub, a once gold town of the then Malaya. This was actually a mountain path and it could accommodate only one vehicle. I rode my Honda C70 motorcycle to Raub. On the way, I was scared of trailers carrying timber logs because I had to be on the look out for one as I had to stop to let the lorry brush past my side, almost touching me. A lot of creatures could be seen crossing the mountain path. Centipedes, leeches and iguanas were the common ones in sight.
It was quite a cooling journey of two hours. When I reached Yong's place - a house perched on top of a hill, he greeted me with the usual broad smile. We were classmates when we studied in Penang. The house was the residence of a pastor. As Yong was teaching in Convent Secondary School and had no accommodation, he was allowed to stay for a year there. It was lunch time when we met and he took me to a nearby Chinese restaurant to savour fried bean strips with bitter gourd which was our favourite. Then it was back home for a cold bath. The water was very cold and it would even be icy cold in the morning when we bathed.
We usually went to the local cinema to watch a movie. Knowing that I was an ardent cinema-goer, Yong would never missed taking me to the cinema whenever I went to see him.
He liked taking photos. The photos below were taken by him using his Seagull SLR camera.
This is the house where I stayed when I visited Yong
Posing in front of the only cinema in Raub
A garden in Raub
I spent a refreshing weekend in Raub, enjoying the cool air and Yong's company. Then it was the dreaded winding journey back to Jerantut.
So much for my winding journey to see a classmate.
No comments:
Post a Comment