Highway snapshot driving toward Singapore

The week before that fateful trip when our lives would intersect with Chong's, I took these pictures while I drove down to Singapore.

Every town and most suburbs have a government sponsored mosque.

So you will have the mosque, but then somewhere else, most likely not far away, is the local Chinese Budhist or Daoist temple.

In every hotel room you'll find this sticker on the roof showing the direction toward Mecca, the direction a Muslim should pray five times a day. I believe this is one of the five pillars of Islam.

These are my bane! All over Malaysia you have toll stations. I have the touch-and-go tag, but now that I have my green card I can apply for the 'Smart Tag', a touchless device that allows you to zoom through the toll lines.

I took this shot of a very, very typical gutter. If you're not careful you'll break your leg like my coworker from the US did a year ago while visiting Malaysia.

A traditional Malay house. Notice the raised foundation and steep roof line, in preparation for massive rain storms that frequent the Malay peninsula.

I love this shot. On the right is a young Malay girl and on the left is a Hindi Malay girl, I assume both coming home from school. Behind them is a red little box, a place to put your Buddhist/Daoist incense and offer prayers to the dead (if I remember my Eastern Religions class in college).

This is Syful, our driver. Justin and I cannot drive the Nissan mid-size truck as it is classified differently than a standard passanger car. He, Syful, is a very humble father of three or four. It's amazing how beautiful a non complaining spirit is. Syful comes early, stays late, never complains; I could go on and on.

This is a photo of the highway as we drove down to Singapore.