Sing 6. The Roads, Part 1

A note on roads for the petrol heads (and Dave).

Roads in Singapore are well maintained and sparsely populated. Because of restrictive Certificates Of Entitlement, a ten year life span of cars, and at least 100% tax on vehicles, the cars are all fairly new and classy: if you're spending $30,000 on a COE - ie, the right just to buy a car - and then $100,000 for a $50,000 car, you may as well get something good. Needless to say, they are often riced up.

There are also a lot of motorbikes, nearly all ridden by people wearing shirts backwards and unbuttoned. No-one actually knows why. I think someone cool did it once and everybody else just followed suit without asking why. Like bellbottoms. But the shirts invariably fall down to the elbows. So if it's an attempt to keep dirt off, it doesn't work. If it's an attempt to look cool, well that doesn't work either. I'm sure the unbuttoned look is to keep cool, but I'm also sure that the air currents would get dirt on their backs, too.

As for the roads, they're mainly divided. This is a good thing as indicating to change lanes isn't a fashion that took off here as readily as wearing improvised hospital gowns. It seems the way to do it is much like in Melbourne: occupy two lanes for a while and just drift into the next lane when you feel like it. Without the one-way system or road dividers, I'm sure things would get ugly, but everybody seems to understand and the system works.

Now Indonesia has some shitty roads. No edges. Lots of mud and dirty kids. Real third world stuff. I reckon you can tell if you're in the third world by looking for a combination of the following:

• unsealed edges
• lots of corrugated iron
• shanty villages
• dirty kids

The real giveaway, though, are the motorbikes. In the third world the motorbike is the family vehicle. Have to go to the grandparents' for the weekend? Not a problem, they're in the shed out the back. No! The other grandparents: No worries, just pile the missus and kids onto the Honda dirtbike and strap a case on wherever you can. Not enough helmets? Who cares? Small accidents don't happen here.

KL, in terms of roads, is like Paris. They're covered in shit, they stink and they're filled with fucking lunatics for whom road laws aren't so much disobeyed as disdained. Respect for other road users is more like a vague rumour, heard of but not fully understood, and certainly not considered applicable. Red lights mean nothing. This is not a city for pedestrians. Indicating just wastes time.

And the mopeds! Like Paris the place is full of them. I guess because they're too poor for cars bikes are the go. But not the big street machines of Singapore, or the dirt bikes of Batam. Oh no, here it's hundreds of shitty, gutless two-strokes. It sounds like the national whipper-snipper championships. Oh for the sweet hum of a 750.

And they are fucking liabilities to a man. Where are the police? Why aren't they out arresting these people. I don't know what the road toll's like here, but I bet it's high. Even though Malaysia has the death penalty, what they need is some good old Singapore style zero-tolerance policing.

After a little more than a day in this open sewer of a city, I'm reminded of Sydney. Replace the homosexuals with mopeds and the Opera House with the Petronas Towers and take out that ounce of culture that Sydney has (in Balmain) and you couldn't tell the two apart. (Especially in the really multicultural bits.) Maybe I'm getting soft after being spoiled for so long by the West. Maybe I just need to see the good part of town. I'm new here, after all. But right now, even though my hotel suite (it has a couch so to me it classifies as a suite) overlooks the Petronas Towers, I say this:

Get me the fuck out of this goddamned shit hole!!!