Night rider

Bikies! Tough. Renegades? Who knows? Would ghost stories be their cup of tea? After reading this story you might start to think so.

I belong to the Harley Davidson club of Singapore. No, I am not a ‘fearsome’ bikie; I am a normal young woman with a professional career as an accountant, which surprises some people. We have friends in similar clubs all over Malaysia as well as here in Singapore and as far away as Thailand. Sometimes friends meet up in Malaysia and join us on our rides. After all, as Harley fans, we belong to a worldwide community.

Our favourite pastime is to hop onto our motorbikes (no, not all of them are Harleys) and ride off as a group to some distant destination. You will have seen us with our leather jackets and our long beards, but of course that is the men. We women don’t have beards! Some of us are rather big, but not me.

Of course, riding in Malaysia is our favourite choice. We can’t ride a Harley far in Singapore, can we? By the time we get up speed on the PIE, we are braking to miss the imported Malaysian sand that they used to build the East Coast Parkway or almost hitting Jurong Island. And as for riding in Thailand? The roads there are not nearly as good as in Malaysia, which are the best in Asia, or so some maintain, and I tend to agree.

Malaysia’s roads run through mountains, through valleys, through kampongs. It is a pleasure to ride there. Most of the expressways are new, and skirt towns and villages, but bikes are not allowed on the expressways. That is no problem. The secondary roads are equally good and far more interesting. As for the scenery: there are waterfalls, there are long stretches of forest, and on the back roads there are delightful kampongs. It is truly beautiful.

Sometimes we sneak on to the main highway early in the morning, but rarely. We usually get into trouble if we do, and tat is exactly what happened on the night I am talking about.

We all left our daily grind behind us (as we always do), for our ride in November 2007 to Thailand. For luck (again, as we always do), most of us wore a Buddhist amulet, protected from the weather in a small locket that we hang around our necks. Even some of our Muslim friends wore a few ‘trinkets’. But despite our charms and amulets, it was a ride none of us, especially me, will ever forget.

We met up with our JB friends at a Petronas station just past the Tuas checkpoint and started our journey. We made slow progress. The traffic was very heavy, and there were a few pile-ups, mostly caused by speeding. We have learned to ride carefully. Many car drivers are a danger to themselves and to us!

We made slow progress, weaving our way through the trucks trying to avoid the hefty tolls of the expressway. We had to keep an eye out for those cars whose drivers, impatient with traffic jams, tried to drive along the edges of the road, causing even more congestion.  It looked as if we would not get to the Thai border before dawn, which had been our plan.

Just before midnight, we paused again at a rest stop just past Gurun, half way between Butterworth and Alor Setar, and still almost one hundred kilometres from the border. Our leader was miffed.

‘You have had too many smoke breaks, drink breaks and whatever! We are way behind schedule!’ he complained. ‘And as for you,’ he said as he turned to me, ‘why can’t you keep up?’

He was like that! We just ignored him. As for me, I have always been the slowest and smallest rider in the group. I always found it hard to keep up.

I grinned at him. ‘Kecil saja! Menjadi raja!’ I said, and he winked and playfully punched me in the shoulder. It does not pay to hit a woman too hard. Especially not me! I may be small but I can break a man’s arm with my fist!

‘We have to get to the border before dawn,’ said our leader. ‘Who is up for taking the expressway?’

Everyone nodded. ‘My goodness, how bad we are!’ I thought, but kept that though to myself.

‘Let’s go at our own pace, as fast as possible, and meet up at the Thai-Malaysian border crossing,’ said our leader and off we went.

By this time I was very tired. I was also finding it quite hard to see. At the best of times, the expressway at night is dark. There are certainly no streetlights along the side of the road. I slowed down a little, for safety’s sake. My colleagues were far ahead. For a while I saw their taillights but then they too disappeared. I was alone. But I was not worried. They would wait for me and I would be there soon.

 I was enjoying the coolness of the night air and the wind whipping against my face when suddenly a white light appeared just above me. I looked up, startled. Something was shadowing me from above. The specter I saw had a female’s head. She had deathly pale skin. Long greasy hair streamed out behind her. Her huge pop-eyes stared far into the distance.

What was I to do? I was riding under the ‘thing’. My heart beat faster. Not a soul could I see anywhere on the lonely road. Not another motorist, not a bus, certainly no other bikes.  I was alone.

I slowed my bike down. The apparition slowed down to match my speed. I concentrated on keeping the bike steady. I looked steadfastly ahead. I did not want an accident. I rode on for what seemed like hours but was probably only a few seconds. Eventually ‘she’ disappeared. I wanted to stop for a cigarette to calm my nerves. I did not. I kept riding, and not soon enough for my liking, I was relieved to see my friends up ahead resting by the side of the road waiting for me.

I said nothing. Normally I would break out into chatter and banter, trying to counter the barbs about being slow and small and sissy! But this time I sat quietly on my bike.

‘Are you OK?’ one of my friends asked, realising that something was wrong.

‘Yup,’ was all I said, quietly! I did not want them to know about this incident. It would spoil our trip.

We rested for a while and then continued on our journey to Hat Yai just over the border in Thailand.

We were tired and checked in to the small guesthouse we always use and had a short nap. We met for brunch later next morning. Try as I could, I could no longer keep things to myself. I told my friends about the apparition. None of them made fun of me. In fact, one of my friends nodded.

‘I have heard of something similar from other bikers,’ he said.

‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ chimed in another of my friends. ’What you saw might have been a kite.’

‘A kite? At one o’clock in the morning?’ said the other. ‘And who was flying it? There are no villages round that stretch of the road. Explain that!’ The macho doubter bit his tongue. It was indeed strange.

‘The amulet protected you,’ said the leader of our group.

I had not taken it off before I slept. I reached in to feel it. Strangely, even after sleeping for hours, it was damp.

‘How can this be damp?’ I asked. ‘Are your amulets damp?’

My friends checked their amulets out. They were all dry and fine.

We looked at each other and frowned, then, with full bravado, we put the incident behind us.

‘Come on,’ said our leader, ‘let's look around.’

We drove along country lanes and small roads, stopped here and there to enjoy the scenery or have yet some more tea or coffee, then retired for the evening. Our plan was to return to Singapore the next evening.

We might have put the strange incident behind us, but on the return journey, we travelled together, and my friends slowed down so that I could keep up. Either that or they wanted to protect me! We avoided the expressway!

None of us saw anything. Not even a kite.