Fancy a Bus Trip Home?

Right now I am sitting in a huge bus station in Ipoh, waiting for the bus to get here. It’s Ramadhan and my absence at home during the fasting month for the past three years has taken its toll. My parents insist that I come home every week this month. And since this weekend my Dad couldn’t come and get me, I have to take the bus instead. And thus our story begins.

I always envy people who are born to be travelers. You know, the sort who can sit anywhere on earth and look perfectly like they belong there. Apparently I am the total opposite. If I am lost, I look like a five year-old who just lost her mother at the grocery store. Right now I am at this unfamiliar bus station, with people walking around like herds of sheep. They all seem to know where they are going. Meanwhile, here I am sitting right in front of a guy who has a weird tick going on. Every two minutes he’ll start nodding his head like crazy for like ten seconds. At first I thought he was nodding at me, and being the dimwit that I am, I grinned back at him and said, ‘I beg your pardon?’ But when I realized that was just a tick he had when he started nodding at me enthusiastically every two minutes I felt stupid and ignored him.

On my right is a guy who’s definitely an immigrant, one of the labor powers brought from other parts of Asia. He’s wearing a funky orange collared shirt tucked in blue slacks (so you know how I knew he’s an immigrant. Yes, I am aware that it’s a mean statement, but hey, I’m just saying what’s on everyone else’s minds). He’s looking left and right, left and right, suspiciously at everyone around him. I have a theory about this guy. I think he’s an illegal immigrant, and judging by how he’s eyeing people around him I suspect that he thinks one of us could be the immigration spy. (oh sure, I’m an immigration spy. I’m wearing two inch heels and am looking completely lost) And because right now I am typing in a laptop he’s probably most suspicious with me. He might think that right now I’m typing, ‘Reporting from Seri Iskandar Bus Station. This is spy #009 reporting suspicious behavior of an illegal immigrant suspect. He’s wearing a seriously unflattering orange shirt paired with hideous blue slacks…’

Ohh the bus is here! Gotta go.