Dreams of a Road Trip

I have always wondered what it would feel like to take a road trip up North, in the land of my birth, Malaysia. I don't know of the exact point when it started, but perhaps the idea was sowed in my mind upon watching the Netflix Japanese series, `Road to the Red Restaurants List'. In this absorbing show, a diligent office worker takes weekend trips to interesting regional spots, by himself, while his wife and daughter are away attending pop concerts. For these weekend `escapades', he has set three rules for himself- no spending above a fixed budget, which necessitates him sleeping on the floor of his Honda Freed, he has to travel alone, and the trip would only consume his weekends, i.e. he would leave after his office work on Fridays and come home after lunch on Saturday. Saturday mornings would be the time for sightseeing, which weren't very elaborate affairs, such as enjoying the scenery of a lake, playing fireworks at an esplanade or visiting a local temple. The highlight of his trips, instead, were the lunches. Intentionally, he would always endeavour to have the meal at a restaurant, often non-descript, but always serving good local food and run by a proprietor who would eventually have to shut down due to the lack of anyone taking over. Thus, the title of the series- red restaurants indicating the endangered status of the food being served.

If I were to go on similar road trips, I was quite sure that food wouldn't be the highlight, although I would surely like to point out interesting and unique food, consumed over the course of the trip. My road trips would probably have history or culture as the focus. Of course, the sightseeing bit appeals to me too. I would keep a journal (or a blog like this one), to document my trips, and after some time, I might even have enough material to work on an actual book. 

I would like to travel to small towns like Muar, Kuala Kubu Bahru or Kuala Kurau, partake of local delicacies and `investigate' local history or culture (think Kelly's castle). On that point, it may be helpful for me to prepare for the trip by watching travel documentaries such as Jaime's Ride `N Seek. I would also benefit from advice from some of my St David bros who enjoy camping at popular camping sites throughout Malaysia. (I've particularly seen Pin Joo posting what appeared to be very enjoyable camping trip moments to our Whatsapp group chat!) 

I can just imagine myself on the floor of the SUV, laid over with a mattress, poring over the Lonely Planet guide to decide what to do and the places to visit the next morning. When I was a young child, I would also lie on the backseat of Papa's car while he was driving, looking outside the window from a unique vantage point. It was usually just be dark outside, as the trips were usually late evening ones, maybe to the grocer's to get food or household items that were urgently needed.

Unlike Suda from the red restaurants list, I probably wouldn't (and couldn't) spend the night in a SUV in some lonely carpark. A more likely scenario would be to book into a small hotel in some small town. Even then, it would be doubtful if I could spend a good night's sleep in such hotels, having watched snippets of movies such as Hitchcock's `Psycho' and nearer to home, read stories from Papa's blog such as `Matters of Nationality'! (For the unitiated, they involve killers and ghosts, respectively)

But one would ask me- first thing's first. Wouldn't you need to know how to drive, in order to go on a road trip? Somehow incomprehensible to some, I had never learnt how to drive. When I was a postdoc in the US, there was an understandable need for your own set of wheels to get around, especially with family in tow. However, I never got past, save for the theory test and a couple of `driving lessons' which I can say now, never really made the cut, from the viewpoint of both learner and instructor. Now in my fifties, I wondered if it would be too late to start learning how to drive again. One day, perhaps, I would attain a driving license, and fulfil the dream of a road trip.