Tyres, Motorways and the Kindness of Strangers

Two weekends ago, in order to cheer the children up after my husband being away for a week and pass the time to his return, I drove them up to the former state administrative centre of Taiping.  This is about an hour north of Ipoh on the road and has some beautiful water gardens, old colonial buildings and, most importantly from the children’s point of view, a zoo with, much to our older daughter’s joy, a clouded leopard (her favourite animal).  Following the wander round the zoo in scorching temperatures and the inevitable stops for people to hug the baby (I think she was the most popular exhibit in the zoo that day) we popped over to the local mall for a sandwich and then drove home. 

Water gardens in Taiping

Coming out of the mall I could hardly turn the car – my power steering seemed to have gone.  It was too late to find a local garage so I managed to wrestle the rather weighty car around the car park, onto the motorway and back home following which we stayed in the house the next day and arranged to put the car in for a check up first thing on Monday.   I have never been so happy to get a car into service as I was that morning, driving an unresponsive car, with a baby in the back, through rush hour traffic is not the most pleasant of experiences.  I wimped out old fashioned ‘little woman’ style and let my much stronger husband drive the school run and in to town as far as his office before taking over for the last ½ hour of the drive.  Even then the drive home on Saturday and trip through town destroyed my back and sent me to the doctors in agony.

By Friday, we had the family car back, steering fixed and all well – it turned out there was a nick in the lines that caused the fluid to leak out, not quite sure how that happened but thank goodness it was not more serious.  So, to celebrate the return of the comfortable car we decided to explore the coast on the Sunday with my husband driving to give me a break.  We enjoyed looking at the coastal town for Lumut and got the timetables for the ferries to Pulau Pangkor.  After that we drove up the coast looking for a deserted beach to which we could take the dogs in the future.  Out of luck with that we decided to drive up to Taiping so my husband could see the water gardens.  Following that back to the same mall to grab a sandwich and then home. 

Enjoying the Zoo

We left the car park ok this time but just after getting on the motorway the car started to judder very badly.  We slowed it right down with the hazards on and lucky we did because the next thing we knew we heard a big bang and the car was dragging along on its rear nearside rim.  Lucky again we were in the slow lane with nothing behind us and my husband was able to stop the car without us going off the road (in a similar situation on a much slower road in the UK we went off road and into a tree writing off the car).  We had  all the children on the verge behind the barrier in record time. Our middle daughter was very frightened but our son, who had been sitting right over the wheel and had been convinced the car was going to flip took charge of the two girls so we could start to look at the car.  A local man had seen the accident from the parallel road and came straight up to help, it turned out that we were less than 1km from a service station and, just as we were deciding to drive the car there the road police turned up.  They put the children in their car while my husband drove and I walked to the station. 

They were very good natured and incredibly helpful but rather bemused at the fact that we had taken the kids out of the car – being conditioned to English roads with the heavy weight of HGV traffic the last thing we would do is stay in the vehicle but they said it was more than ok to do that here.  When I got to the service station another driver had picked up the baby and was fussing her while our son was cheering up our daughter.  I sent him off to get some fruit and the pair of them were able to sit down close to us and munch on mango and watermelon while we set about changing the tyre.  Unfortunately this was the one time we left home with only my keys and it turned out the release for the locking nuts was on my husband’s key ring.  We were just about to call a taxi when the man with our baby said he was driving our way and gave us all a lift and, brooking no argument, took us straight to our front door.

Our poor tyre....

The next day, once the children were in school we went back up to collect the car and change the wheel.  Our friend from the night before who had been first on the scene was there and came straight over to help.  Another couple also popped over when they saw me helping to release the nuts and jack the car.  Malaysian service stations usually have an array of fresh fruit stalls so I was able to get some hampers put together by way of thanks.  Tyres swapped my husband went to collect the children while I drove the car back to Ipoh and straight into our local tyre shop, two hours later and we had a full set of (rather expensive but brand new) tyres.

We still do not know what caused our tyre to blow like that – perhaps whatever nicked the power steering lines caught the side wall of the tyre and it showed up the first time we drove the car at motorway speeds.  Following our English accident all those years ago I am red hot on tyre safety – always buy as close to top of the range as I can, check the pressure once a month and before all long journeys, do regular visual checks and change them a long time before they reach their minimum.  In any event we were very lucky that we were going as slowly as we were and that the motorways were reasonably empty.  We were also so touched by the kindness shown to us by so many complete strangers.  We always stop and help people but not everyone does (I remember being stranded by the side of the road age 4 when my 8 month pregnant mother was ignored by all passers-by and left to change a tyre by herself and get it back to a garage for tightening, the country shall remain nameless but it was a typical experience of the posting).  On Sunday night we saw Malaysia at its best. 

I do know, however, that if and when we go back to Taiping again we will absolutely not be going to the Subway at Aeon Mall, trips there seem to be cursed for me!

Written as part of the My Expat Family monthly blog link up.

Click on the picture for more posts on life in Malaysia.