(Daniel) I woke up this morning, having not finished packing yesterday, I had still got to put a few things into their rightful places, and the front of the Wolf needed to be scrubbed, as there was an inch of mud on pretty much everything inside!  I decided to have a bite to eat first. SO I walked next door to the fishermans café.  The attitude in the café was palatably different, everyone smiled and gave me approving nods, talking to each other about me with gestures and points.  This could only have been due to my confrontation with the Chinese film crew yesterday, who had been playing the locals off against one another.

As soon as I sat down, men came over to join me, and I was invited to play a game of draughts.  I nearly accepted the offer, when I noticed that the board was much larger than I am used to, and the rules seemed to be far more complicated too.  I declined in favour of watching the game, eventually realizing  that it was too tricky for me to master without an English speaker present to explain the rules!  I thanked the café owner, explaining that I would be leaving Batu Rackit today.  As I walked back to the house, I could still hear the appreciative conversation and imagined what it meant.

For those that have not picked up on it, I have had a good time here in Batu Rackit, but it has not been easy.  The people here were very different from anywhere else I have been.  Normally a language barrier is a temporary problem if at all.  But here in Batu Rackit, they make it into a fine art.  Their embarrassment at not being able to communicate means that people will pretend not to hear you, cross the street, or worse put their hand to your face and shake their head.  I often found myself in a restaurants ordering food, of course I can do this in Malay, but because I am foreign, they don’t even bother listening to my order, and simply repeat, “No English!”  Now, after all my time here, it was an act of defiance against a crew of Chinese film makers, that finally allowed me to break through this barrier, gaining the respect and acceptance of the villagers.

Smiling to myself about my new found acceptance by these simple yet hard to reach people.  I went back to packing the vehicle.  Lawrence, who I had agreed to pick up on the way back, had stayed with another friend last night, who worked on the huge oil refinery north of Kuantan.  I had promised to leave early, so that we would be able to get to KL in good time. As I worked however, the men from the village, now free to come and visit me, walked over and sat on my porch, talking to me in the local dialect, and smiling, looking over the Wolf, and generally getting in the way!  I didn’t mind of course as this was payback for me, after weeks of walking around with no-one to talk to I was the centre of attention.  It was this attention that slowed me down so much, and meant that by the time I called Pak Uda to collect the keys, it was nearly 12.00pm.

I waved goodbye to the villagers as I drove out onto the main road.  Then back through Terrenganu and onto the East Coast Highway that had first brought me to here.  At the Oil refinery I found Lawrence from the directions that he had sent me via SMS.  He was pleased to see that the vehicle had been cleaned and organized since our last meeting!  As we drove on, Lawrence discussed with me the idea of turning the Lone Wolf into a business.  Continuing the journey, and the producing an offshoot of the website.  A kind of online calendar that would show you where the Lone Wolf would be, and when.  You would then simply click on the dates that you wanted to book, and would get a quote, including flights, and all the costs which you would incur for food etc.  Then if you wanted to proceed, you would book an interview, where, if accepted you would be assigned a role for the Expedition.

I have thought long and hard about this in the past, there could well be some real mileage in the idea.  If it worked, there are several other Gold Wolves out there, that I reckon I could get my hands on, these vehicles could do different routes, perhaps even meeting up once or twice in a year.  Lawrence told me that Sen Lip and his wife had both shown real interest in the idea, and that he thought many others would too.  I have had over 1 million hits on my website, which is certainly a good base to start marketing to.  I have resolved to keep the idea in mind, and if anyone has a real interest in doing something like this in the future, contact me, and perhaps we can put it together?  Next year I am hoping to join Nick, Amy and Oliver, and put a team of three cars into the famous Mongol Rally, from London to Mongolia.  Again, I may be open to offers of extra team members from the right people.

After a few more hours on the road, we came to Kuantan.  Where I had first stopped on my way up the East coast.  We pulled in to the Batu Village Resort where I had met Regis and Leo.  In the Sunday bar, Regis was out for the day, but I could see Leo outside his beach shack and walked over to say Hi.  Irene, Leo’s wife, saw me first, she called Leo, and told him I was here.  Everyone was happy to see each other again, I introduced Lawrence, who was quick to get into conversation with two English ladies who were sat down with Irene.

After dinner, it was back on the road again, and heading into Kuala Lumpur, where hopefully, with the help of Lawrence, I would have a working laptop again, and if my recent luck continues, all my photos.

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