Thursday, January 11, 2007

My train rides

I have been one of those who were fortunate to drive to work and have the pleasure of getting stuck in the jams.

However, in the last 2 weeks, I have taken the train to work on a few occasions.
Surprisingly, it is not as bad as I had thought it to be. Every time someone tells me they take the train, I imagined hot and sweaty places, crammed sardines, rude people pushing, nasty train conditions and above all, delay in schedules.

Well, I am happy to say that I was 90% mistaken with the above perceptions.

Firstly, I must say that the trains are very well ventilated and the air-cond is generally good, so no hot and sweaty places. However, it is still very crammed and packed. I pity people with kids who travels during the peak hours, the kid would have been squashed. This is where being big and tall has its edge over the others!

Now, although Malaysians are generally nice and polite and all that, it is not exactly true when one is rushing to work or when one is rushing home. There are people who show their worst but majority of us are still bearable. One thing though that annoyed me is the way people INSIST on rushing in the train when the people are trying to get out. Needless to say, the transition is not as smooth and thus takes a longer time compared to if everyone was more tolerant.

I had also imagined nasty smells and dirty seats, but thankfully, I experienced nothing of that sort. It was instead quite clean and "smell-free".

Schedule wise, only slight delay was experienced, about 3-5 minutes, which was still quite tolerable although punctuality would have added the "WOW!!" touch to the experience.

Tomorrow would be the day I am taking the train cause the traffic coming out of KL on Friday evenings can be horrible. I am lucky cause the train station is just next to my building. I am also lucky cause I park at Mid Valley, so I get to still shop a bit when I get off work in the evening before I go fetch Ryan.

Here's another reason why Friday is the best day of the week!!

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