Arghhh. I just began some navel-gazing, introspective, intellectual vomit. Then I remember that I might be the only person who ever reads this page, and I didn’t want to read that kind of boring shit.

So I scratched the dandruff off my head and remembered the thing I meant to write about a month or so ago. God, no wonder I feeling like I’m getting older, I keep letting time slip by me.

To whit, the story. There’s one great thing I love about traveling, and maybe it could be true the next town over, but it’s definitely true when you are far away, no one’s talking your language and every thing feels strange, foreign if you will. It’s when your brain sort of gets into the place where your normal routines just don’t apply, and your willingness to do anything is expanded canyon wide.

The best travel stories are the ones in which the teller knows for a brief flicker the rules weren’t for him, but invincibility was.

Obviously, I have one of those stories.

Penang is an island state of the coast of the mainland of Malaysia. Not far off the coast, mind you, there’s a bridge. Parts of the area are as over overdeveloped as a place that’s been trod as part of a trade route since the 15th century can be. But other parts are wilder with narrow winding roads and hills green with rain forest-y overgrowth.

Thanks to the narrow, winding roads, and maybe a island vibe of not entirely giving a fuck, the locals are repudiated throughout the country as the worst drivers around. The local paper’s stories of traffic gore kind of bear out that reputation. Alongside the usual vehicles, there are swarms and swarms of folks on tiny motorcycles, slightly more roadworthy than scooters, warning in and out of the traffic havoc.

It probably means something that both M. and I come from places that have renowned bad drivers. At least his home state doesn’t have the equivalent of Massholes, like mine.

Anyway, whenever I’m there, between looking the wrong way when crossing the road, on account of that driving on the left thing, and the nutty drivers, I figure I might get picked off in the streets.

On the other hand, we’re in vacation mode. Nothing can touch us.

Near our hotel there was a network of women handing out flyers for a manicure, pedicure, reflexology, massage, whatever you want we got kind of place. Actually, it was four places, and there was one woman who we kept seeing in front of a different place every day. Turns out she owned all four places, and, while to the tourists they might have seemed like different places, for her they were part of a continuum.

One day, walking across the street from one of the places with time in our hands, an older woman called to us the usual sales pitch. We called back does she take credit cards, because we had no cash. She said, “yes.”

One thing I’ve figured out from traveling. — if you are in a tourist area and seem agreeable to spending cash, a good chunk of the time the proprietor of a business or her staff will agree with you. There is time enough to sort out the negativity, and from the outside they just want you in the door. “Sorry, cash only,” doesn’t get you in the door.

Tricked again, we entered the cash only business. And the old woman who brought us in was an affable problem solver. She turned right to M. and told him not to worry he should start on his foot massage, she would simply take his ‘wife’ on the back of her motorcycle, and we’d go to the ATM. She called it her “moto,” and given that she was approaching or had surpassed 60, I actually didn’t realize what she meant at first.

With a borrowed helmet on my head, I sweatily clutched her matronly love handles and headed down the road. Even though I couldn’t completely understand her Chinese accented words over the roar of the engine, I gathered that she was going to take a couple of back roads to keep us out of traffic.

Check. I’m on the back of a motorcycle, driven by a stranger on some back alleys of an urban area on and Asian island.

In retrospect that could have gone awry.

I laughed when I came back and told someone the story. She reacted, “Oh my god, there could have been people waiting down the alley or outside the ATM.” For all I knew, it could have been a ruse to mug a tourist.

That had never occurred to me. I was thoroughly in the travel headspace where you go with the flow and everything works out. Here I am to testify.

I wonder if my demise will be in a foreign back alley some day. I have to admit, I’ve always relied on the kindness of strangers.