Suburban Safari Southernmost S-E Asia

The No. 5B bus from JB Centre beneath the Checkpoint the one for Taman University campus, not any old Skudai town one. Luckily an alert and helpful driver put that right at the outset. Aboard the 5B another considerate driver who knew Jalan Kebudayaan. Ya, ya, rest assured. As it turned out Kebudayaan was tricky with the numbering, poorly signed and the rest of it.
         Going out amongst all the downtown dreariness patches of ground that gave hints of the former forest and even jungle. A woman up in Georgetown a few years before had memorably described sitting out front of her grandpa's house in childhood and hearing one evening up behind from the jungle the terrifying roar of a tiger. In amongst the concrete and bitumen trees, vines and matted grasses suggested the hidden depths from which the beast could suddenly emerge to confront the innocent farmer with the hoe hung over his shoulder. 

         Hasan a former submariner, another chance acquaintance who leapt to pay the bill of the stranger he encountered at an eatery, had been a stout defender of the PM Najib standing accused of thievery. At the kampung table a fish on a piece of banana leaf for four to share in the bad old days of Hasan’s childhood. Now everyone had cars, there were queues at all the stores &etc. Who cared if there was a little light-fingering at the government till? As long as the people shared the advance.
         Glimpses of thick forest from the time of yore squashed beside ugly freeways, ugly housing developments and run-down industrial concerns. Another dead Sumatran tiger had been photographed the other day in the newspapers up in Perak, where the orang asli did the trapping for the merchants dealing in medicinal organs, skins and the rest. There had been a "sun bear" also pictured recently, a remarkable looking mammal with staring eyes that reminded of a waiter down at KV in Singapore. Same again for hunting endangered species—regulations flouted, ancient remedies and elixirs of life, the middle-man never the one apprehended. The sun bear too was another goner.
         A forty minute bus-ride filling in more of the picture of Johor State, the largest in the federation, birthplace of the UMNO party of Najib (whose father had never been accused of theft from the public purse). The local Sultan's palace had been passed the last two days in the buses. Near the palace a football ground where the Crown Prince of Johor was promoting a team; a golf course and country club was on the other side. There had been a report of a polo match in KL down in the newspapers in Singapore, the photographs suggesting very much daylight hours galloping with over-fed notables in the saddles. Every likelihood a field down here in the south. 

         China State Construction in Danga Bay was as expected a large condo development with cheap assembly barracks for the labourers. It was a surprise to see a number of Sub-Continental faces in the vicinity: Bangla and Indian men might suit the Chinese operators better down here—the Mainland workforce was putting themselves out of the market.
         Half-way along the road to Skudai a couple of Indian or Bangla lads had boarded at one of the stops. Initially the chaps had not appeared a pair. One had entered first and the other may have been delayed paying his fare.

         Not construction labourers these two. One lad wore a long black ear-piece and both in neat, presentable office attire of the particular Sub-Continental kind. The laggard wore a maroon polo carrying the insignia on the breast of Taman U it looked like. A freshman best guess, not long in the country.
         The lads had boarded with a couple of old Chinese, a silver jubilee husband and wife fetching up to the home-stretch. In the quest for seating the Polo had taken a place that the Chinese woman had eyed for hubbie and herself—a pair toward the front facing the wrong way that were not usually preferred seats.
         Ear-piece had taken a single against the window directly opposite the back-facing double. Before the Polo had assumed his seat there had been a little brief dance in the aisle as the Chinese Grannie had manoeuvred for the place. Polo however had the inside running and could not be rounded unless the young man graciously gave way.

         In an awkward feint and attempted step-round the Chinese had tried to suggest a seat behind that might have suited the young man even better than the back-facing double. As there was no shared language the woman had smiled, turned her chin and half-raised her arm. Unseen by the fellow as he had turned away.

         From side-on it might have been perfectly clear to the lad what the woman was proposing; if so ignored by the young man and bordering upon rudeness.

         Another smile, no real grievance signed, off behind the woman turned, motioning her husband on and indicating one place for him to the left and she would sit opposite on the right, good as gold.
         Polo seated himself directly opposite Ear-piece. It took a few moments to realize even then that there was an association. When the pair exchanged brief words there was nothing audible.

         Chaps of an age, late 20s. Earpiece was receding early, thinner build, fatty face; Polo well thatched, stockier and a little more handsome. Neither sandaled. Ear-piece wore a shirt equally drab-coloured; watches and jewelry not evident. In his right hand Ear-piece held a bronze-covered smartphone that seemed up-scale, perhaps one of the new Mini screens. The piece in his ear looked to have been newly polished; fairly gleaming like spot-lit ebony.
         And for the remainder of the fifteen or twenty minutes to Jalan Kebudayaan in Skudai town the pair was kept under close observation and never let out of sight.

         With an arm back-stretched on a bar as if for bracing the observation could be extended without the observer coming under notice.
         There was no need to swing round for the monitoring, the pair and their sitting was clearly in view peripherally too. For the more full capture of the picture the extended arm screened out the heads of the lads.
         Earpiece wore dark navy slacks; Polo may have been more casual. It was on the navy cloth of Earpiece's left knee against the window that his friend Polo rested his right hand. Two or three fingers of this hand were free for his friend, countryman, clansman and townsman to clasp. Earpiece’s hand enfolded the offered fingers. In Earpiece's right the smartphone did not ring for the duration; had it done so the pair would have needed to de-couple…. Could Earpiece have kept hold of his friend and managed a conversation on a rollicking bus-ride?
         Earpiece knew the terrain, the lie of the land. Maroon Polo was the newcomer casting out through the window either side.

         Nothing really to observe, there was no feature of any kind over this passage. A Giant supermarket, bus shelters where people largely ignored the No. 5B. Pretty girls were nowhere to be seen. Lads of this kind did not ogle pretty girls in any case, mostly averted their gaze, the skimpily clad particularly. A dreary low-lying tropical landscape cut by the usual brute forms.

         Outer town areas in Bangladesh and India must have been the same, desert stretches aside. We all suffered the same. Still a newcomer needed to look; it was foreign terrain where it would be easy to lose oneself, rendered helpless without the language, little money and immediately become prey to unholy types. Perhaps the maroon Polo had not yet got himself a phone. Word too of the tigers would have come down.
         The close hold without any release, the body posture and flitting glances seemed to suggest the threat.

         One had observed similar tenderness between young Indian men on innumerable occasions down in Singapore. Indian or Bangla lads. Fine young good lads for whom one's heart leapt out reading about workplace deaths, seeing the large gangs transported nights in the rear of lorries like sticks of wood, passing as they toiled under the demon sun or filed off to lunch with their improvised shade under plastic safety hats. The street-sweeps and the groundsmen of the HDBs were often Indian, certainly the garden and garbage detail. (The old Babi had always warned street-sweeping or the slaughter-yard awaited a lad who neglected his school-books.)

         Brotherliness here on display in these parts that was difficult to convey for those on the other side of the divide and unknowing, acculturated otherwise and impoverished. Mateship, comradeship, neighbourliness and suchlike were something else.

         The point has been made previously: down in Singapore the younger generation of Chinese has been known to visit Little India on their own Little Red Dot Sundays for a spot of internal tourism featuring the carnival of the foreign labour.