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.