I had thought that it was going to be a brainless ride all the way till the end of the NSH. But I was wrong. Pica7 car encountered a dramatic tire burst before Ayer Keroh. Luckily I was able to make out his SOS smoke signal behind and stopped before I got too far away. A malaysian car stopped behind thinking to rob 7 and Speed but seeing my macho built running to their direction, they sped off to look for more vulnerable old helpless woman target. (keke...just kidding. I think they stopped to see if they could help).
We quickly flipped open our "DUMMIES GUIDE to tire changing" instruction book and proceeded with the 56 steps on tire changing. In a brief 10 minutes, broken tire was replaced with spare tire and we moved off to continue the journey. But Pica7 was worried sick that his other tires may not make it.
Luckily for us, after coming out of Sungai Besi Toll, we past by a series of tire shops. We quickly filtered out for Pica7 to change his whole set of tires for an indecent sum of money that could not be mentioned here. I was sure that he got chopped, but hey, what to do? He has a "chop me" face... (die, going to get humtum by Speed again...)
From that point, we headed up to Genting quite smoothly. My little Pica was feeling the load of the steep slopes and I had to downshift my gears and engage overdrive (turning off the aircon), to just crawl up the hilly incline. But it was quite achieveable and Pica did manage to reach the very top without any overheating or "tire burst" problems (like someone else). Most of the uphill climb was on 2nd gear and on one occasion, I had to almost stop to down shift to 1st gear. We reached Genting at about 4pm. (including all the time to change tires, and going to the workshop).
We had a good time at Genting, trying all manners of machineries to toss us here and there. Most of the rides had long queues, and we spent most of the time queueing and admiring the scenery of the back of someone's head. None of us gambled, so it was mainly shop, eat, play...in whichever sequence that our kids dictated. We met up with Speed's mother (who owns Genting), and had a good sumptuous dinner with her.
The trip back was quite uneventful, except that on the downhill, I was following behind this Sin red plated car and he was stepping on the brakes all the time. I could smell the burning smell of his brakes. I was sure that his brakes would be chow tar by now and would need replacing.
We took the wrong way back and had to cut across KL just to link to the start of the NSH. There was a junction to go to Karak or KL, and we took the KL one. Traffic was very bad, and the road signs, quite confusing. But we were lucky, and managed to find the start of the expressway after 2 hours down from Genting. We had a rest stop somewhere before Nilai. At that time, it was already about 4pm. We decided to take a non stop drive all the way to Perling (if I could find it).
The expressway was quite bad that day and along the way, there were many places that narrowed to a single lane due to road construction. Weather was also quite kooky. I thought we passed in and out about 10 rain zones during the journey. There was one time that the rain was very heavy and all the cars would on the hazard lights just to make themselves more visible.
Despite all that, and an emergency call for toilet and petrol refueling, we managed to hit Skudai toll at about 6.30pm. Very good time. The only trickly part left was the way to Perling. I think I didn't take the right way and ended up in Kempas. After some directions asking from fellow drivers, we managed to end up on the other side of the Pasir Gudang highway towards Perling. But alas, the traffic was jammed packed and the progress trickled to a slow crawl. We wasted 30 minutes in the Jam and reached perling around 7.30pm. But quite good time for groceries shopping (gu ni hoon) and late dinner.
From there, it was the usual way back, refueling and back home via 2nd link. My kids and 7 and Speed's "kids" said a tearful farewall and vowed to met for more riddles session in the near future.
It is good to report that our Pica is quite solidly built and is more than able to last the gruelling trip up to Genting Highlands, the city of entertainment and "give me all your moneytainment". I was half expecting to return with a broken steering wheel only, but it is now sitting in my car park looking as new as the day I got it, like a good horse.
http://forum.onemotoring.com.sg/mvnforum/mvnforum/viewthread?thread=2326&offset=30
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