The Road to Miri
Chapter 1 : In which the clowns lose a water pump and adopt a dog.

Do you know how all those clowns fit into that one small car at the circus ?
Well, I do.
First, you need a bunch of clowns. Yuva, Padma, Totomanic, Anba, Hari and myself would do very nicely. Then, you need a car. How bout an Iswara? And finally, you need somewhere to go. Miri? Perfect. You put these three things together and you have a circus.
We left at about 7am, all of us excited about seeing places none of us had seen before, hoping for an experience none of us would forget. We took the Padawan road ( no I'm not making it up. Either they named it after Star Wars or Georgie boy's been here ) and before long found ourselves on the open road, nothing but clear blue sky, greenery all around us and an engine that was running a little too hot for my liking.
Before long we found ourselves on the outskirt of Sri Aman, demolishing an entire bunch or rambutans. 3 kgs for RM3 !!
The trip til Sibu was quite uneventful, we passed by the town of Sarikei, and stopped in Sibu for lunch. I kind of like Sibu, it has a Penang-ish feel to it- the old chinese shops standing next to the brand new malls, the smell, the taste of the food, the sheer variety of the food. Didn't get too see all that much of it though. We made plans to stop in Sibu on the way back and savour the seafood, which is supposed to be the best and the cheapest in Sarawak. Perhaps even the nightlife. Sigh...the best laid plans...
Things really started to go wrong between Sibu and Bintulu.
Thats about 400 km of open road. Nothing in between except thick jungle and the occasional longhouse.
And it was at one of these occasional longhouses that the clownmobil ( it's like the batmobil, only funnier ) came to a decisive and very abrupt stop.
We'd busted the water pump.
Somewhere along the way, a bump had taken its toll. And not a mechanic in sight.
So we got a dog.
How does that solve the problem you ask? It doesn't. But we're clowns, so you can't expect all that much of us.
Besides, the poor thing came scampering out of nowhere howling for food. We had the good nature to give it all of our already spoiled fried bihun. Warmed our hearts to do a good deed. Especially after seeing the mutt walk in circles and throw up after eating the bihun. There's a place in heaven for us, for sure.
After witnessing our saintly deed, some of the longhouse tenants ( and grateful owners of the canine, I'm sure ) decided to help, to speed us on our way, before we decided to feed any other poor creature. It's quite a surreal experience having a woman clad only in a clingy sarong peer under your hood. The resident mechanic's a woman apparently. Inherited the business from her dad. No, I didn't say women can't be mechanics, it's just that I've never seen a woman mechanic in all 20 years of my life.