Suffocate in LRT

Well, first post and it's going to be rants about the 'efficient' transportation system in Malaysia. Forgive me, but being in Japan for a year made me realised how slow Malaysians are progressing in transportation system. And I'll just complain about one of the train systems we have here, that is Light Railway Transit, in short, LRT (left picture). And I'll zoom into one of the lines in LRT, and we call it the Ampang Line.

I'm a frequent passenger, in fact, almost 70% of Kuala Lumpur inhabitants use the Ampang Line LRT to go for work, school, college, whatever destination we have in mind. The Ampang Line LRT itself has 3 lines - Ampang line, Sri Petaling line and Sentul Timur line. Confusing? I hope the route below helps.

I use all three lines throughout my life. And I feel frustrated that the trains are not as punctual as the trains in Japan. In fact, all trains and other transportation in Malaysia are not as punctual as those in Japan! Despite having proper planned schedules for the whole world to refer to. How ironic. Well, I admit that Ampang Line LRT trains arrive every 5 minutes, but usually, they just can't reach on time. Hence, you can see a crowd of restless Malaysians who refuse to line up, forming on the platform and when the late train arrives, you will see ALL of them rushing into the coaches as if that is the last train to leave to eternal life. I'm not exaggerating, but it's the truth. Which is something I hate because I would be in the train trying to catch a few decent breaths while being sandwiched between a man with body odor and a lady who poured a whole bottle of perfume onto herself.

Then, we have the poor passengers clinging onto the cooling poles in the middle of the train in front of doors. No matter how crowded that areas are, these people are willing to be canned sardines as long as they are near to the doors. And this is seriously the most annoying behaviour on Earth. For crying out loud, they'd rather crowd the middle area than to stand in front of the seats simply because they have to hold onto the hangers, meaning that they have to expose their so-called smelly armpits to the seated passengers. Hello, there is such thing called deodorant. I don't mind if they want to suffocate to death in the middle area as I always stand in front of the seats, but this 'middle' crowd always create unnecessary obstacles by the doors for passengers who are to board the train. I practically have to squeeze my way through the crowd along with their humongous bags (God knows what is in their bags) just to get into the train. Worse, some of them won't even budge or make way for you. Instead, they'd give you that I'm-kinda-stuck-here-because-my-butt-is-too-big-to-move-around look. Plus that what-the-hell look. Sometimes, I have the urge to scream at them to tell them to be sensible enough to lift their arms up and hold onto the hangers instead of creating a massive traffic jam in the middle area.

Can you imagine them in the Japanese trains? What a huge shock the Japanese would get!

Anyway, this is my first complain about Malaysia. But that doesn't mean that I don't love my country.

12 more days to Independence Day!!!

I'm enjoying my short break though. Happy holidays!!!