Boredworkers.com

Well, I woke up yesterday morning at 6.30am with intentions of cutting across town to pick WL up. I had forgotten all about the damned Kuala Lumpur International Marathon 2006 that was happening. In other words, I was screwed.

I wasn’t out of the house for more than 10 minutes when I hit my first road block. They had closed off the in roads to Seremban Highway! Since it was still early morning and my brain was still asleep, it didn’t click then what was the purpose of the closure. Being the typical busy body, I stopped by the road side and chatted up the traffic police at the scene.

Me: Tuan, jalan tutup ke? (Sir, road closed?)
Police: Ya.
Me: Apasal tutup? (Why close?)
Police: Jalan tutup. (Road close)

At this point, I got a little confuse. I know that the road was closed and I wanted to know why. But like a broken recorder, the guy just kept telling me that the damned road was closed. Feeling perplexed, I decided to give up on that line of questioning and move on to more important matters.

Me: Boleh buat U-turn balik ke Seremban Highway? (Can make a U-turn back to Seremban Highway?)
Police: Boleh.
Me: Jalan situ tak tutup?
Police: Ya.

Talk about one liners. Taking his word for it, I headed down the wrong direction of the highway. That’s when I noticed the long snake like throng of marathon runners pacing themselves across the opposite side. “Oh! Its the KL marathon thingy that Kenny Sia is supposed to be in!”, the thought smacked face first into my brain. Judging by the crowd, I figure that the entire side of the highway was closed to accomodate the runners. My fears were confirmed when I tried to make the U-turn under the flyover and nearly ran over the policeman’s motorcycle parked in the middle of the road. Oh well, nothing to be done about it. I was forced into KL. HORROR!

15 minutes later, I was at Jalan Hang Tuah, and sitting behind another road block. Damnit! Those marathon runners are fast. Didn’t I just see that guy running along the highway only minutes ago? Another conversation with the police officer, and a quick 180 later, I was back on the road, trying to find a way to cut across town. The officer told me that the roads have been closed since 5.00am that morning (right on schedule), and the first half of the participants had passed by.

Another 15 minutes later and I found myself at Jalan Sultan Ismail, right in front of my old office at Wisma Genting. Yup, you guessed it, there was another road closure. And again, that same bunch of loony runners. Don’t they get tired? This was getting ridiculous. At this rate, I was probably never going to get to WL and we would miss all our appointments. I had another chat with the police officer at the scene. This one, at least, had a sense of humour.

Me: Harlow Tuan. Sampai pukul berapa jalan tutup? (Until what time road closed?)
Police: Entah la. Pukul 9.00 kut. (I dunno. Around 9.00 maybe)
Me: Wah, lambat lagi. Jom kita pi minum teh dulu. (Long time more. Lets go for a cup of tea.)
Police: Lepas ni, boleh la. (Afterwards.)
Me: Ok set. Jumpa nanti. (Agreed. See you later.)
We laughed for a bit before parting way.

I managed to take this picture of some of the sorry souls caught by the road closures. However, none were bigger than this clown.

After 80 minutes and 9 road closures, I finally managed to steal pass the sneaky bastards running the marathon. But even after so many stops, I didn’t manage to catch sight of our favourite celebrity, Kenny Sia. Where was Kenny Sia? Did he manage to finish or did he collapse on the way? Lets wait and see :)