How to stay awake in long drives

 

The open road...

It was quite a tiring journey I had last weekend as I could only shoot off to Penang on Friday night as my wife was working and I had to wait for my mother to come from Seremban. So, as my mother was at my brother's house, somewhere in Subang Jaya, my wife and I settled the kids (which of course are the cats), decided not to put them in a hostel which would fluttered them and picked my mother up around 8 o'clock. As we drove off, my wife and my mother wanted to have dinner and we stopped at a R&R area in Guthrie Highway to have some satay. At least the skewed meat and chicken did not make me too sleepy.

We arrived in Penang around 12pm and the directions by the GPS that I have in my Blackberry, which is a Google Map and the direction by the person who answered the telephone at the hotel did not help. We were lost when we entered Penang island. How we got there is a classic example of why men and women are so different. Check tomorrow's post

As for the trip back, I had proper rest but quite a full stomach. As we entered the North-South Highway, I actually started to feel sleepy. In such situation, what does one do? Some tricks which I usually do, but does not condone in any way :

1) Pull nose hair;

2) Slap face;

3) Eat or snacks;

4) Talk;

5) Listen to my mom talks (she did not stop from North to South);

6) Listen to the radio;

7) Sings to the songs from the radio and as most stations were playing Michael Jackson's songs, it was easy for me;

8) Argue with wife about mundane things;

9) Stop at every rest stop; and

10) The thing that everyone should do, and I didn't do it, stop at a rest stop and sleep for awhile.

And this is a guy (meaning me) who was involved in a bad accident (no broken anything) on the highway as I slept on the wheel. That was nearly 10 years ago and is a story in itself (it involves a woman).

Some men, they just don't learn....

p/s - but my longest drive was still the one I did from Munich to Rotterdam in a compact car with another 2 persons. That one was memorable as it was on the Auto Bahn which has no speed limit!