For as long as I can remember, the Batik Influencer kept turning on her charm to influence me to take her to the beach. And always, there was something that always seemed to clash with the dates we wanted to go; which weren’t many.

Then, Laura went to Port Dickson (P. D.) (1) with her friend for a wedding. And stayed for the night. And went to the beach the next morning. And spent some time there.

That set Jeannie’s sights to go the very next weekend, which is this weekend, the Chinese New Year hols. Laura booked us in last Tuesday….or was it Wednesday? Anyway, we were set.

Our Sunday itenary was to go for the 8.30am mass at St. Thomas More Church, then go for breakfast somewhere nearby and start our journey to P. D. at 11.00am.

Sunday (that is today), came. We went for the 8.30am. mass at St. Thomas More church. Check☑️I found mass quite entertaining… the Music Ministry…let’s just leave it at that.

We passed by a couple of Indian restaurants with the hope of having roti canai for breakfast. They were closed. On the second day of Chinese New Year! Can you beat that? One would think that they would capitalislze on all the Chinese coffee shops, kopitiams and restaurants that are closed because of the lunar holidays.

Then, we heard bagpipes being played in the distant background…no, our car is Japanese, not Scots. And the bagpipes…imaginary, as we decided on McD’s – reliable for being open everyday.

We had a quick breakfast… The Batik Influencer ordered a “hash brown wrap” and iced coffee and I; a sausage with egg McMuffin and iced coffee. It was a quick breakfast. I wanted to go back home for a short rest before going on the fairly long drive. We anticipated that we were going to have more than our fair share of the blazing sun. To give some perspective, P. D. is closer to the earth’s equator than Subang Jaya (2). Hence, it definitely was going to be much hotter in weather temperature.

We started our journey at noon. As we got on the Seremban (3) highway intersection from the highway route that we got on from the Toll plaza, we got (3 “got” [s] ) smack into the usual jam at Nilai. It seems perpetual as any time of the day is a crawl. Got past that jam about half hour later and it was a breeze drive all the way for about 5 minutes.

Now, it was the Seremban traffic crawl heading down South, for as far as we could see. For those heading to Johore (4) and Singapore, you have my sympathy.

As we turned off to the P. D. highway, there were pockets of jams, all a few minutes each. Jeannie insisted we used Google maps and I said I knew the way. However, Google Maps showed the way that was shorter, at least on Google Maps itself. I decided to follow the electronic guide. We didn’t know what was in store for us next.

We followed the directions shown by Google Maps. It took us into one of the small Malay kampungs (villages in English). We went through some very narrow roads (more like dirt tracks) and very tight and bumpy turns. The map showed the sea was so close by.

I kept turning to look at the back seat to see if we picked up some chickens and goats. The movie, “SHADOWS IN THE SUN” was still very fresh on my mind where Welson Parrish drove and crashed the publisher’s car into a chicken coup.

We managed to get out of there without picking up any chickens or goats. If we had gone the way I knew, we could have avoided this “scenic” route.

The Batik Influencer said, at least now, I had a story to tell. Possible title, “HATTED WRITER’ S FEATHER IN THE HAT”.

We’ve checked into our room. I chose to pen this down, while Jeannie does some office work. We’re waiting for the sun to go to the other side of the equator, at least a little bit, when the temperature outdoors will be cooler before venturing to the outdoors, itself; feeling the white sand and the wet sands of the beach, soaking in (that should be from the wetness of the seas of the Straits of Malacca) the many colours and hues of the sky, the sun and the many sounds of humans, enjoying the simple pleasures of life – playing on the beach and in the seas.

In the meantime, let’s make light and easy plans for galavnating around P. D..

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This article would have been published earlier on in the evening, if not for it getting lost somewhere in the back office. I was going to launch it at the same time as the one just before this that was published. I had to seek my daughter, Laura’s help; to try and recover the article.

There must have been a clash of two articles because this which I wanted to publish as I had already seen the final draft, was launched at the same time as the previous article which meant both articles would have been published.

Long story short; I managed to retrieve it from another sector, had to modify it slightly and re-add the pictures in

NOTES:

1. P. D. (Port Dickson) /is a seaside town, located in the state of Negeri Sembilan.

2. Subang Jaya is a city in the state of Selangor, Malaysia.

3. Seremban is a city in the southern state of Negri Sembilan, Malaysia.

4. Johore is the southern most state of Malaysia.