10 days. I was so close. 10 more days incident free and I could have gotten home unscathed with my pride intact, even a little cocky maybe...
For the most part driving in KL, on the other side of the road, has become a bit of a non-issue. I have the places that I go, the familiar routes I drive, have even ventured to a few new places, gotten lost along the way and still found my way home. But for the most part I have stuck to the paths that I know. It sure simplifies things. And, unlike for those of you who have had to take a British car from the UK into Europe, or a European car into the UK, I will say that when you do actually sit on the other side of the car it does sort of set you up to be rebalanced, to make it a little less bizarre to be driving on the other side. Sure there is still the odd moment where, even when I am a passenger, as you look at the car ahead and there is no one sitting in the left-hand seat your brain shorts for a moment and you think "Oh my God, there is no one driving that car! Oh wait, we're not in Kansas." Or when you look at the car next to you and the person sitting in the left-hand seat is about 5 years old (we won't get into the child-restraint laws here, or lack thereof) or is lazily reading the paper. Even 6 months in, those moments still give me a "Wait...what?" reaction. And I can even admit that in the beginning there was once or twice where I was in the driver seat and Heinz was with me and if we stopped at a light (KL lights can be soooo long!) I actually forgot that I was the one driving. And when we didn't move with all of the other cars I looked for a split second to Heinz. Ooops!
But I had moved past all that and found a confidence level that enabled me to stray more often from the familiar routes. Heinz was out of town last week and I was feeling interpid: I was going to my girlfriend's house for the first time; new place, new route! The trip there was not without incident. I looked her building up on the map and got directions on Google Maps; seemed easy enough to get there. But when I got to her part of town I found that the street into and out of her neighborhood has been closed and is now a one-way street out. Now what?? Well she directed me in the back way by phone and I eventually found it and she explained to me that the road is closed because the person who owns that land has decided to restrict access. None of us could fathom why a city street would have been built on what appears to be private land but, again we are not in Kansas, this is KL with all of it's idiosyncracies and "charms". We had such a nice day. We spent the morning at her pool with another Mom friend. We had a great time, the kids played, we had lunch together and shared our Mom stories. And finally it was time to head home. So we said our goodbyes, made plans for the next day and the kids and I got in the car. We headed out of the parking lot and, after stopping at the guard shack to give back our visitor parking pass, that's when it happened, the thing I have been so afraid of all along: I pulled out onto the "American" side of the street. There are few things in the world worse than that moment of realization that you have made a horrendous mistake and there is nothing you can now do about it, except wait for impact. Luckily the oncoming traffic was light and the car in the nearest lane was far enough away that the collision was light, my front left bumper against his rear left quarter panel. But there was impact so I had to go face the music and take care of the situation. The other guy pulled off to the side and I had to turn around and go talk to him. It's really depressing how your brain can just stop functioning when you need it most. My first instinct of course was to call Heinz and luckily he was in a position, while in Singapore, to answer his phone. Hearing his voice at least did help to calm me down so I went to talk to the other driver and he actually did not speak English but luckily one of his passengers did at least well enough for us to exchange info. Insurance is really not all that common over here, I don't think, so basically everyone just exchanges information and handles it amongst themselves. So I got his information and I drove away and only then it occurred to me that I didn't really even look at the damage to his car, didn't get the make or model and didn't even copy down his license plate! As I said, it's as if your brain deserts you when you need it most! I guess the adrenalin just gets in the way and then all the nightmare images of what could happen next start flooding your brain: They are going to inflate the damages because all locals think Expats are rich! They're going to be really creepy people and they're never going to leave us alone...your mind can just go wild, can't it?
So the kids and I headed home, adrenalin level slowly returning to normal. In the meantime, Heinz's first instinct was to contact his friend at work, Valentine, their office administrator and get her advice on the situation. I had planned a visit to her that evening anyway (her kids love Conrad and Vivienne and ask to have them visit as much as possible) so when I arrived she knew all about the situation. She has become like my little guardian angel, (I am lucky to have found a few here) and she had her husband call the guy and get a feel for the situation. It can probably make all the difference to have a local go to bat for you but it truly seems as if they are very reasonable people. Simply put, the fault is 100% mine; I drove on the wrong side of the road! But as a foreigner it's hard not to feel really vulnerable. But I think it's all going to work out alright as far as not costing any more than absolutely necessary and hey, it's always great to get material for the blog, right? And most importantly, no one was hurt.
So like I said, 10 more days. If I had just remained unscathed for 10 more days I could have gone home bragging about my prowess driving on the other side of the road. Oh well. Maybe it's like that first scratch on the new car: now that I've actually had my worst nightmare come true and survived it, I'll be more daring to venture off the beaten path by myself. Surely I won't be making that mistake again? We'll have to keep you posted on that one...
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