On the Malaysian Roads with Police Escort!

And before you wonder what did I do to get involved with police in Malaysia let me set the record straight. When I was there for Malaysia Tourism Hunt 2012, we were traveling in a 30 car convoy and covering more than 1000 kilometers. The police escort was to keep us together and safe and probably others safe from us!

Initially when I got to know we were traveling under police escort I was intensely curious. After all this is the one and only time I experienced how it feels to break the traffic light because the police told you to do so!

Initially I was hesitant about the presence of the police team, after all coming from India, I did not know how to interact with them. But as the days went by we started greeting each other, then asking them to pose with us and finally I even got food recommendations from them. Initially I also thought that having police with us was an extravagance but within a few hours of being on the road I realized that there was no other way to keep 30 cars together! So for those few days we were more used to jumping red lights rather than stopping at them!

I did not encounter a single pothole on the roads that I traveled. And once again we all from the Indian contingent marveled at it! The road to the villages would be narrow but still without any potholes.

But the police on the bikes had a tough job to do. Malaysia has a warm climate and I clicked this picture from my air conditioned car. But these gentlemen would be riding these beasts in the heat and managing traffic for us averaging 200 km or so per day. I thought they arrived very tired but when we would see them at the dinner again there would be no trace of visible fatigue.

I have to say that driving (OK in my case enjoying from the passenger seat, I only drove at Sepang F1 International Circuit) was great and traveling in a police escorted convoy certainly once in a life time experience!