Phuket, Thailand

After 22 hours of travel from Bangkok we arrived back at Butterworth, Malaysia, where our train journey had begun almost four weeks before. Rather than returning to Northern Magic, however, we jumped onto a bus to Kuala Lumpur, the capital of Malaysia.

After utterly foreign Thailand, returning to developed, industrious Malaysia gave us a distinct sense of coming home. In fact Malaysia now seems to us like the Canada of Asia -- prosperous, moderate, comfortable. It was great to be back, and even though we had never been to Kuala Lumpur before, it nevertheless had a solid sense of familiarity about it.

We had come to Kuala Lumpur on the strength of an invitation from Bill and Connie Price, fellow Canadians and Citizen readers from Carleton Place. Bill is an executive with Newbridge corporation, and has been posted to Asia for the past six months. Their invitation was especially enticing because their two sons, Philip and Michael, are exactly the ages of our two oldest.

We had first met the Prices a month earlier, when Bill and Connie had done us the enormous favour of hand-delivering our new Visa cards, which had been mailed to them by my sister. To do this, they had driven all the way from Kuala Lumpur to Lumut, a six hour journey round trip. This was an amazing act of generosity, especially considering they hadn't met us before.

We arrived at Bill and Connie's apartment late in the evening, after about 30 hours of travel. As tired as we were, our eyes opened wide at the high-rise wonderland that is Kuala Lumpur, a city beautifully landscaped and full of wonderful modern architecture. Virtually all of its major buildings have arisen within the last ten years.

The Prices live atop a 37-storey building, with a million dollar view of Kuala Lumpur's landmark twin towers, among the tallest buildings in the world. From shabby guesthouses with Squee Toilets to this beautiful penthouse apartment was almost too much of a contrast to take, and we all felt like whirling around their living room with arms outstretched in delight.

Not only that: this oasis of Canada in the middle of Asia was equipped with all the things we were most missing: computers with Internet access, sofas, kids that play all the right games, a bathtub, air conditioning, a washer and dryer, frozen waffles, fresh orange juice and CNN. In fact, I have to say, in all honesty, that staying with the Prices and all their Canadian-style comforts made us feel more than a little homesick for the things we have left behind.

We tooted around Kuala Lumpur a bit, going to see the Batu Caves , a Hindu shrine where hundreds of monkeys roam around looking for handouts. But mostly we were content to relax and enjoy the warmth and hospitality of the Price family, until it was time to return to Northern Magic and resume our journey by sea.

Despite our burst of homesickness, each of us was pleased to get back to our familiar floating home, and apart from a thin layer of black mould which had grown over much of the cabin ceiling, Northern Magic seemed none the worse for having been neglected for a month.

Our sense of contentment was, however, short-lived. As soon as Herbert flicked on the fridge, there was a strange rattle, followed by a faint burning smell. We hadn't been back on the boat an hour before Herbert was once again shoulder-deep in refrigeration repair -- the story of his life, it seems.

The motor brushes had worn through. No worries: next morning he took the bus into the nearby town of Sitiawan and found a company specializing in electric motor repair. The mechanical whiz in charge assured Herbert he could manufacture new brushes in short order. At the same time, he would machine the motor, to save the brushes from wearing down so quickly in future.

While he was at it, Herbert, cleverly thinking of preventative maintenance, and congratulating himself for his foresight, gave Mr. Whiz our alternator for machining as well. "I always do stuff myself," he told me after he got back. "For once I'm going to have things taken care of by a professional."

And thus began the Days of Doom on Northern Magic.

The next day, Mr. Whiz returned with some bad news. Our two-year old alternator was not going to last, and his advice was that we should replace it. And, luckily, it so happened that he had a reconditioned alternator he could sell us, for only 250 ringgit, or about $125.

Herbert agreed to buy the reconditioned alternator, but asked Mr. Whiz to still fix up our old one as a spare. Mr. Whiz agreed, but with a certain reluctance that made Herbert wonder aloud to me whether something had happened to our alternator.

The next day, two of Mr. Whiz's henchmen arrived with the new alternator. The kids peeked curiously out of the hatch at these two unusual fellows: one, whom we will call Mr. Mole, had a wispy patch of very long hairs growing out of a mole on his otherwise clean-shaven face, giving him the look of an ancient Chinese sage; the other, the quiet Mr. Thumb, had an extra digit sprouting out of the other thumb on his left hand.

The rebuilt alternator didn't fit, but Mr. Mole assured Herbert that they would make the necessary modifications.

The next day he reappeared with our fridge motor, freshly painted and looking spiffy. I watched as Herbert hefted it skeptically in his hands. He was frowning; there was too much play in the shaft, and all of Herbert's careful markings showing how it should be adjusted had been painted over.

Herbert sent Mr. Mole on his way, and sat down with the motor, connecting it to a power supply. It would take a lot of trial and error to get it properly readjusted and he was already cursing that he had let anyone mess around with it.

For a minute the motor whirred. Then there was a grinding noise, followed by a kind of sparking noise, followed by a puff of smoke, followed by the acrid odor of burning wire, followed by the sudden cessation of the sound of the motor -- followed by an explosive utterance by Herbert, which I'm afraid I cannot reproduce here.

Our one and only fridge motor was burned out, fried, destroyed, kaput.

The new brushes had been poorly made, and instead of distributing electricity across all three fields in the motor, they had been delivering all the current to one set of contacts only. This created an overload which melted wires inside the motor.

Now, you may be wondering, given that our motor had now been wrecked, what about the alternator we had so trustingly given away? That episode was still to come. First, however, the pitiable Mr. Mole reappeared the next morning with the new alternator. Our captain had been -- well -- more than a little upset over the destruction of the motor, and the kids and I had awaited the arrival of the unsuspecting Mr. Mole with a certain trepidation. Asians don't like loud scenes, and neither do we.

Well, Herbert was, I thought, actually very reasonable about it all. He explained to Mr. Mole what had happened to the motor in quite a nice way, smiling even, and handed it over to take back to Mr. Whiz for assessment.

Next Mr. Mole presented our new alternator. It, too, was nicely painted, but upon close inspection, Herbert discovered it had the very same problem as our old one: the rotor was grooved and needed machining. It was, in fact, no better than the unit it was intended to replace.

Mr. Mole agreed to take it back to the shop for machining, but first he had a message to deliver.

"My boss say the price of this alternator is now 450 ringgit," he said, shifting uneasily from one foot to the other.

"What?!" said Herbert in amazement. "The price is supposed to be 250!"

"He know you not agree to 450 ringgit," answered Mr. Mole nervously, "but that is new price. Since we already make special modifications for you, if you don't want to pay 450, he say we buy alternator back for 400."

"You must be kidding," Herbert roared, "First you wreck my motor and now you change the price we agreed on? Where is your boss? Tell him I want to talk to him."

"Boss not here -- in Kuala Lumpur. Not my fault -- don't be angry; I am only worker. You want me to go ahead with work, or not?"

"Okay," Herbert said reluctantly, "But you tell your boss to come and see me. I'll pay the 450, but you tell him I need to talk to him. And bring me back my old alternator."

A few days went by. The hot Malaysian sun was steaming, Northern Magic was steaming, but, most of all, Herbert was steaming.

Do you remember what I wrote not too many weeks ago about my newly mellowed husband? Well, I take it all back.

Valuable days were going by, we were tired of Lumut, but we were going two steps back for every one we went forward. In fact, we were only going backwards, not forward at all: we had no fridge, our old alternator was nowhere to be found, the promised rebuilt one wasn't rebuilt, and the slippery Mr. Whiz, rather sensibly, perhaps, was now refusing to show his face. On the phone, he had magnanimously offered to fix the motor he had ruined for the modest sum of 850 ringgit, which was about the cost of the brand new one we had now been forced to order from the States. His suggestion didn't go over well at all.

All Herbert wanted now was to get our original parts back. We were ready to cut our loses and run.

Finally the hapless Mr. Mole reappeared with the rebuilt alternator (machined, or so he said), our original alternator (maybe working, maybe not), and our fridge motor (definitely not working). He also had with him an invoice for the alternator, the one we had agreed to buy for 250 ringgit, and then, under protest, for 450.

Unbelievably, the invoice now read 650 ringgit.

Suffice to say that Mr. Mole left hastily, carrying both the rebuilt alternator and the invoice. We never heard from Mr. Mole, Mr. Thumb, or Mr. Whiz again.