This is a picture of the town of Kajang taken from on top of a bridge across the railway tracks. The skyline have changed much since the town became famous for its rather tasty satay decades ago. If then, the town consist of about 3-4 rows of shophouses, now it's almost becoming a metropolitan of it's own... Why, it sits among the less than 5 cities and towns or so in Malaysia which have it's own ring road to disperse the major traffic plaguing its boundaries!
For information, my Malaysian identity card hails me as originating from Kajang... My father who used to work in Kuala Lumpur bought a house there in 1983 and since 1987 I've used the place as my official place of residence as shown in the identity card althought I've barely stayed there, having been born in Muar and raised in the state of Johor before continuing my studies in Kuala Lumpur and then flying overseas to England.
Now, I spent most of my time staying at my auntie's place in Ampang, that is if I'm not travelling all over the Peninsular. However these days, I tend to take a few days respite to be left alone at the Kajang house...
For the record, since my dad became a pensioner having completed his term of work in Kuala Lumpur about 10 years ago, he returned to stay in Muar, where my mother's side of the family hailed from. And thus once in a while only would dad and mum drop by at Kajang. Most of the time it is empty and whenever I feel like wanting to have my own private time resting and languishing as and when I feel like it without being disturbed, I would go there and stay to my heart's content.
Last week, I was in Kajang again. Except there's a big difference this time. I came with my loved big bike which I haven't used for the last 5 years!
You see, the bike had a major break down sometime between mid 2003 till the end or so. I haven't got the money to fix it and thus had to leave it behind where it broke down... In the village of Janda Baik up in the jungle and the mountains of the main range of Banjaran Titiwangsa, the area which became my unofficial place of residence from 2002 till 2005... When I'm in the midst of some heavy soul-searching and practically lived like a bum, a madman even!
Since my bike broke down, I had to rely on public transport most of the time. As I was in the midst of heavy soul-searching which me made travel a lot all over the Peninsular including to places unaccesible by any public transport, I became used to walking for miles on end without stopping and thus had developed a stamina which could rival my youthful days in school as a serious rugby player!
Now, I bought the big bike, a 535cc Yamaha Virago in 1997. Since I could practically go anywhere by bike including to places unaccesible to cars or any four-wheeled transport, I have become too lazy to walk. Thus I remember being so exhausted and famished whenever I had to walk a bit to places which I couldn't get into by bike!
The good thing is, the years of having to walk for miles have toughen me up at least stamina-wise. While I'm happy that I finally got my bike working again, I'm worried that I might lose the wonderful stamina if I got too attached to my bike again! Besides the petrol is much more expensive nowadays, almost twice the price I had to pay before the bike broke down...
Oh, by the way... It should have been repaired since last year as I had the money to fix it then. The problem is a friend who promised to get it back to form, a friend whom I gave the chance as he is a part-time local mechanic in Janda Baik failed to deliver. Not only that, he used to money for his own business while the bike was left to languish at his place to rot so much so that many parts were stolen there and I almost gave up the idea of seeing it up and running again for good! That is until I got the right encouragement from some friends while this particular part-time mechanic friend finally returned my money back... So 2 months ago I rented a lorry and took the bike down to Rawang where I found a nice Malay big bike workshop to do the job.
Two weeks ago I finally got the call that it was fixed. On Tuesday I took the bike from Rawang to Ampang and the next day did whatever was needed to put it officially back on the road... That is getting the necessary check-up to get it certified fit enough to run again after 5 years out of action and 7 years without a road-tax (yes... The last road tax expired in September 2001!), having the insurance covered and finally getting a new road-tax.
Thank God, the whole process was dully completed. And on Thursday, I finally brought it back to Kajang after more than 5 years!
As I'm afraid that I might lose my current walking stamina if I relied too much on the bike, I promised to walk a lot in between rides whenever possible. So on Friday, after the congregational noon prayers at the main mosque, I parked the bike just outside the southern fringes of the town centre and decided to do some walking. And thus I got to the far western side of town and felt like taking the first 3 pictures above.
The last picture here is actually taken on the way back to where my bike was parked at. Since I have poured out so much about my bike (honest, I actually just wanted to share these pictures of Kajang when the thoughts about the bike came out just like that!), let me put a picture of it taken last week ya! Here it is...
For more pictures of it, have a look at the article Yahoo, eh... Alhamdulillah... Moto beso aku boleh jalan dah! in the Malay blogspot CATATAN SI MERAH SILU . There, I'm finally satisfied for the night! Oh, almost forgot... I wanted to post some pictures of Janda Baik here before I call it a day. Have a look later! :]
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