Man...i had the most unpleasant experience (so far) last night with Bertha. Went to Plaza Singapura for the 1st time with it. Going up the car park, no problem, no need to pay, can go thru the gap. Looking for a parking space, no problem. Went for dinner, buuurpp. Went shopping for toiletries, groceris, see see look look, shiok. Went back to the bike to go home, bike still there, no twisted soul jealous of it, no inadequately-trained car drivers accidentally backed into it or grazed it. Put my stuff in the panniers, put on helmet, start the engine, and vrooom i go. Go down level by level until the exit where the ticket scanner is. Oooppss!! BIIG PROBLEM. There're two lanes. I was too fast going into the right lane. Saw there's no gap between the barrier for bikes to go thru. Look around, saw a sign "Motorcycles keep LEFT"! Dammit, only the left lane has the gap. There's a concrete barrier btwn left and right lane. And I'm on a downslope. Stop the engine, get down from the bike, wave at those cars behind me and motion them to go to the left lane since I'm blocking the right one, and then what else, attempt to pull my bike back up lah. It....was.....H..E..A..V..Y.
"See lah. who ask you to buy such a big bike. Serves you right."
"Oh god, why does this has to happen to me?"
"Maaan...those drivers must be laughing their ass off at me."
"Mmmpppffhhh...come on, mooove u big heavy ass...UUUrrrrrggghhhh"
And then out of the corner of my eyes, I noticed a van stopping at the side. The driver came out and walked towards me.
"Need help?"Ahhh....my saviour...my hero.
He helped me pull Bertha up to the top of the slope, then we pushed it together to the side to let other cars pass. Has a short chat on how I ended up...well...like that.haha. Then he told me he's a biker too. Oooooh...so he understands, he knows what it's like. I said thank you to him endlessly. Then he got into his van, we waved again at each other, and off he went.
I stood there for a while, shake my head, and laugh at myself, and the situation I got myself into.
While riding back home, I kept thinking abt what other things that can happen and how to deal with it. Like for example, u break down somewhere in MY, what can I do? Who can I contact? Even a simple thing like punctured tyre, I don't think there're many shops in MY catering to high-capacity bike. How am I going to get my tyre replaced? But then I was also thinking, there're so many other bikers who've toured M'sia, thailand, and probably even further up north even. So how do they handle it? How do they prepare for any...eventualities?
Norway in a kuaci shell
A few years ago I watched a program on Norway. I can’t remember whether was it National Geographic or Discovery or some other TV programs, but images shown from various landscape of that country have been etched in my memory ever since. When BMW launched the latest model of my favorite motorcycle, they shot its promotional video amidst the beautiful landscape too. Now that wife and I are in Scandinavia, we thought we should visit Norway and see the country for ourselves. We skipped our honeymoon when we first got married in early 2007, so this trip makes up for it. We figured that if we fly there, we will miss a lot of the countryside. If we take the train, we will not see as much as well. So we decided to rent a car, buy a road map and have a little adventure finding our way and driving to places we want to go. It's exciting because any place we end up at is new to us. And we can stop anywhere we want or when we want to see something up close. On the day we went to Hertz...
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