Pass The Teksi To The Left Hand Side

Aside from the fairly chaotic KL traffic behavior, the basic driving setup itself here in Malaysia has had me adjusting my mental window of perception.

Here in this country, cars have right-side driver setups...and they drive on the left-hand side of the road.

This has been taking some getting used to as a pedestrian. Cars seem to come from nowhere, partly due to bad drivers, but mostly due to my lack of experience. Essentially, I have to focus more on the second half of a pedestrian intersection rather than the first half, like I do back home, because that is where cars who might be crossing my path by turning will be headed.

For the first few days, cars coming in from seemingly nowhere have come into my sphere of awareness in last-minute fashion; thankfully, I have avoided a trip to the hospital up to this point.

I found this behavior extends to escalators and sidewalks. Most people here stand and walk on the left, respectively. I definitely show my western bent when I find myself wading like a salmon upstream against the masses before my brain double-checks things.

My awareness has been getting better, though, and the "right" way of doing things by going left is slowly but surely being assimilated into my psyche.