Funny

My sides were rent asunder by this .

Go-karting

As resorts go, Batam probably doesn’t rank very near the top. Its beaches are dingy and have the texture of cat litter. There isn’t much night life. And, though all the hotels have pools, they might as well be filled with tar because I cut through the water like a rhinoceros.

So what does that leave us? Well, go-karting, of course.

Throughout history, it has been shown that if you put a live human in what is basically a Krispy Kreme box, give it some wheels and affix an engine filled with boiling hot oil next to its right ear, it will be thrilled and pay you lots of money for the privilege. Which is precisely what the ten of us did just last weekend.

Of course, this being Indonesia where their most notable export is the haze, we were each fitted with old helmets and pretty much nothing else. Pat’s helmet was too large and sorta hung off her head which gave her a permanently bemused look. My helmet, as you would expect, was too small which made my spectacles pop out in a manner resembling that of a snail. The rest, whose heads were normal-sized, looked fine. The asses.

And then there were the instructions which can be summarised thus: “Here, no! Hot! This, brake. This, accelerator. Go!” And we were off.

The thing about kart pedals is that they really aren’t the sensitive instruments we drivers are used to. I depressed my pedal halfway and experienced… nothing. I pushed it three quarters of the way through. Still nothing. And so I went all the way and suddenly, my head was glued to the back of my seat, my snail’s eyes were flapping in the wind and that bloody vat of oil was popping deafeningly just inches from my face.

It was exhilarating.

Naturally, the instinct to chase the person in front kicked in. And I started to reel Bryan’s girlfriend in, the ultimate goal being Pat, of course, who’d started off first.

Until she crashed.

I remember ploughing through the home straight, almost killing an attendant who was (I thought at the time) daftly running across the track, turning around to call him a nut and then seeing Pat, still looking bemused in her helmet, inexplicably facing a wall of tyres.

Thankfully, she was alright. She later commented that her crash had actually been “quite fun” and that she wanted to “do it again”. I think not, darling.

By and large, we all made it back without anyone being set on fire or losing their limbs. Andy’s legs cramped up because they were too long. Some of the girls’ legs cramped up because they were too short. One girl spun out and somehow ended up chasing her kart across a field. It was most entertaining and I richly recommend it. Just make sure your head isn’t as big as mine.

Taxi ride of death

Just endured the most harrowing taxi ride ever. In just 20 minutes, I was maimed four times and killed twice. The cabbie, whom I suspect enjoys watching Speed Racer, drove at speeds which I did not know a taxi capable of. He weaved constantly in and out of traffic, missing the cars in front and on either side by mere inches. The way he turned, you’d have thought that there was nothing between the clutch and the accelerator but another accelerator. Death waited patiently for me at every corner – until the cabbie ran him over. And during one particularly close shave, I even reaccepted Christ as my supreme divine saviour. (Of course, this was quickly rescinded – no one wants to go to Heaven as a hypocrite.)

Anyway, while I was busy changing religions, the cabbie hardly blinked. He just sped on and on, diving out of one lane and into the next with unflinching ease. Once or twice, he looked in the mirror to see if I was dead and, upon discovering that I wasn’t, went even faster to ensure that I would be.

Still, for someone who was intent on killing me, he was exceedingly polite, constantly referring to me as “Sir” and asking which routes I’d like to take. I probably would have appreciated this more if the G-forces hadn’t plastered my face to the window.

I knew he was having me on, though. While taking one bend about 120km/h too quickly, he reached for the handbrake and I caught him surreptitiously looking in the rear view mirror to see if I’d gone white, which I had. And then he smiled ever so slightly. “Is that fast enough, Sirrrr? Bwahahahahahaha!" The bastard. He might’ve had his moment of glory but I will have the last laugh because, tonight, he’ll be cleaning his backseat.

A relationship in binary

I haven’t seen Vanessa for almost two years now. And though we’ve been talking regularly online and her MSN pics are always smashing, for all I know, she could have turned into a 50-year-old fat man.

We’ll meet tonight though. It’s the Russell Peters show and I’ve been handed a T-shirt with the lines “I need punani. Give me two.” printed on it (Thanks for the punani, Karen!) which she’s vowed to rip off my back thus exposing my “puny frame”. (I’ll go do some push-ups in the toilet right after I finish this entry.)

Oh, and I’m supposed to pass her my Jeremy Clarkson book.

Anyway, looking back, it’s rather amazing that we’ve managed to keep talking for this long. Back when we were colleagues, we hardly spoke a word to each other. I remember that she sat at one end of the office, I sat at the other and that was about it. I think that was partly cos she was doing finance/admin (I frankly don’t know what you were doing, Nessa) and we creatives always look at money people with suspicion.

But then she left and went back to Australia to study and, somehow, being separated by a few thousand miles persuaded us to start talking. I don’t know who started it (probably me, according to her) and it was... well… fun. Finally there was someone I could talk to about books. And she’s one of the few genuinely witty girls I know (I don’t know that many girls). Oh, and she actually had an interest in writing at the time which I was constantly encouraging (Now her job title has the word ‘fiduciary’ in it. Not good. Not good.).

And so it was weird that we didn’t meet up even when she returned to Singapore. I guess she was going through a rather tumultuous time back then so we never really pursued the idea. Or maybe, as a 50-year-old fat man, she was worried about my reaction upon meeting her in the (abundant) flesh.

And that’s continued till now! We’ve discussed this before and come to the conclusion that we’ll have nothing to talk about in person and that it’ll be the most awkward moment of our lives. Like when those South Koreans got reunited with their long lost North Korean siblings and discovered, much to their dismay, that after all the pleasantries and vigorous hugging, it was impossible to sustain a conversation about Samsung with someone who only wanted to talk about growing turnips. Even worse, I very much doubt that our reunion will involve vigorous hugging of any sort.

Still, a virtual friendship is good enough. I get entertained at work and she sometimes gets to give comments on my copy. Only a few people are bestowed with this most coveted of honours – their cries of “not again” and “please stop” are merely unique ways of conveying their modesty – and she is one of the lucky them.

But like I said, we’ll meet tonight just before the show. It’s scary and I hope I have something to say even if it’s just “Oh my, you really are a 50-year-old fat man.”

Supper one night

Last night, the bunch of us – Adrian, Clara, John and a few of his colleagues – went down to Little India for a dim sum supper which, when you think about it, is like going to a fish monger and asking for a rack of lamb. People are going to think you are mad.

The place was along Desker (hur hur) Road and, to get to it, we had to drive heroically through throngs of people whose sole purpose in life it was to get run over. Actually, John was doing the driving. I was doing the trying-to-be-inconspicuous-in-the-back thing. I also politely requested that he lock the doors.

Digression: As my sister has informed me, the rules of traffic in Little India involve a hierarchy of sorts. In all instances, the cow comes first. If you hit a cow in Little India, the only thing that will save you from the angry mob is if you actually turned into a cow yourself. If, for some reason, you fail to sprout an udder, chances are that you will find yourself skinny dipping in an exotic Indian dish called soup tulang (if you don’t know what that is, you can find out here at this excellent food blog).

Naturally, after the cow comes the bicycle. Often with men in dhotis perched on them, these are regularly seen swerving into oncoming traffic in what can only be described as a charmingly carefree manner. Quite why they do this is unclear but it is speculated to be related to allowing one’s ding-dings to hang free for too long.

Last in line, and particularly hard to avoid hitting, is the human being. In this part of the country, walking in a straight line is unheard of and pushing your pal jocularly into the path of a speeding automobile is seen as a suitable way of reinforcing your friendship. If he survives, he can then further strengthen this budding relationship by trying to convert you into a speed bump. As is often depicted in Bollywood movies, they build strong bonds here. End of digression.

So anyway, we did finally find the place and tucked into some, well, mediocre dim sum. Normally, when you are sitting in a dingy back alley with your table right beside a big blue box labelled “HIGHLY FLAMMABLE”, you’d expect the quality of food to be at least as high as the chances of you dying a fiery death. Unfortunately, it wasn’t quite worth the risk.

At least the conversation was interesting. Seems that our beloved SAF has replaced the old MILES system with something called TES. I’ve forgotten what it means but apparently it works quite well except that you have an antenna sticking out of your helmet which has the effect of turning any valiant NS man into nothing more than a gun-toting teletubby.

Actually, other than that, and some discussion on this wonderful Even Stepvhen clip (“First off, it’s not my logic, Steve, it’s God’s logic as written in the Bible, every word of which is true. And we know that every word is true because the Bible says that the Bible is true.”), I can’t remember what the hell else we talked about.

Still, I returned home in a rather buoyant mood and proceeded to not fall asleep. I think I’ll do that now.