On road scare, Rain making roads like glass and LD’s tyres are almost bald. Then after odd small skids it happened, It wasn’t my fault and through luck and instinctive movements we got out of it safely. A boy walking along my side a bike coming the other way and a VW pulls out to overtake the bike just as I was passing the boy, he must have braked and skidded came straight at us first on my side I swerved the other side and thought wed got past him then he swung back and 20 yards from each other head on doing 40 miles an hour, I had gone into a skid the other way It was a cert for a head on, then about half a second from it he went off the road into a field and I just managed to control our skid, that’s the closest I ever want to be to a crash, another car behind us ran off the road. So nobody was hurt and no vehicle damaged we used LD to pull the other car out of the mud.

Still going!  Everyone is still putting up with the discomfort ok. Reached the Malay border about 6pm They wouldn’t let the French guy through he only had $3 Don’t know how we managed it, put £45 and $50 and 700 Baht on all 3 forms, Bev showed the money first passed it to me then I passed it on to Syl, we got a 2 week entry visa, which is more than some got with more money. Stayed the night at Butterworth, cheap hotel 4 Malay $ a room, it was a good hotel. Sat up half the night smoking and talking. Finally after 4 days cramped up in LD we arrive in Kuala Lumper, dropped 2 lads off then went to the youth hostel and slept in grounds.

( Note: Malayan  customs would not let you enter unless you had  a certain amount of cash,  and didn’t  look like a ‘hippie’ Syl  cut our hair before we left Bangkok)

Wrote home M & L

Met the bloke who the New Zealander told us about in Bangkok, He’s here at the youth hostel in KL, is thinking about buying LD for £300. Cleaned it up again the engine looks good, back wheel nut stripped and one sheared off. Eating fried rice still, getting really sick of it now, we eat in a rice kitchen at the top of the road, really cheap. Everywhere stinks of incense, next door to the youth hostel an incense factory burnt down. Its good here we sleep in LD and use all the facilities and it costs us nothing. Only 4 minuets from town centre.

Had the body and engine cleaned and puncture mended for $5 Malay,  night then the back wheel cost $6M, quite cheap and fixed in 1 hour. The 2 lads we had dropped off in town came bounding in they had someone who would buy LD. The girl they had come to visit her father said he would buy ..So off we went but the duty has to be assessed still he offered 1 thousand us dollars. Abandoned it because it takes a few days, found buyer on the last minuet he gave us 100$ M deposit full price 2400 so we settled. Went down to the Colosseum Restaurant ( old colonial place with old waiters in bow tie and tails)Has a sizzling steak,  couple of beers fantastic night, had a smoke then drove Jed the Yank to the station what a drive! It was strong grass.

Buddhist Temple in KL

First move towards parting with LD, we had to get permission to sell. Margo’s Landover was round the back of the garage minus the engine, it was unrecognisable resprayed, new windows fitted, only way we new it was Margo’s was she had 2 gas bottle brackets fitted underneath. Went to check the post restante didn’t think there would be anything because we had told everyone to write to Singapore. 2 letters there one fromBevs mum addressed to ‘the post office Malaya’ don’t know how we got it but we did, and one from Hallmark in Bangkok, he reckons there’s a way round selling. But were going through with this now. Staying in a cheap hotel in town only $5m between us, had the first wash with hot water since Tehran. Kuala Lumper is a very clean civilised place, the very old and the new side by side, nobody bothers you or tries to hassle you, and it’s very orderly like home.

Good hot baths now at this hotel feel quite clean, visited the museum to pass away the day, everything we do regarding selling the car seems to be quite positive. No problems up to now. The museum was very interesting, a big modern place murals the full length of the building outside and inside much of Malaya’s history, the section on the aborigines of Malaya was very interesting, blow pipes and poison arrows they looked a bit like Negro’s a lot of them in the old pictures.

For the first time we have permission to SELL. Night time went to see ‘Isadora’ quite a good film but not what I expected, would liked to have seen it with Larraine.

Today I was the proud owner of a Mercedes Benz, at least on paper. I signed my name on the log book so they could give LD the registration  of the merc. That’s it. The end of the road for LD, tomorrow we get $2400 Malay dollars for it, that’s about £343. So we didn’t loose much on her and we have done 14 thousand miles on the clock. Went to the old Colosseum to celebrate had the biggest sizzling mixed grill ever, cost $9.20 the most expensive meal yet. Total duty payed was $650 that’s 47% import duty of 1,400, the price we told them we sold it for, Now on at last to Singapore and letters from home.

Mileage  71700

Deal Complete 2,400 Malay dollars paid in cash. Had a look at my Merc, signed to me in name only. Mileage on LD 71700 making total mileage from Manchester to here 14,170. Now we complete our journey by other means of transport. Missed the 1.30 train to Singapore next one not till 8.15pm cost $17.40. 2nd class. All cleaned up and ready to go, different style of travellers now, shoes on, clean shirt, tie, pocket full of cash and now off to Singapore. Caught the train at 8.15 it left finally at 8.30. The longest journey I’ve ever done, the longest time to travel 250 miles, left KL 8.30 still going at 7.30 next morning, uncomfortable too travelling in the dark didn’t sleep much.