We took the Tube to Covent Garden, nestled in the West End of central London. The moment we stepped out of the station, I felt as if we had entered a different rhythm of the city one that was softer, more theatrical.
The cobblestoned Piazza and the Central Market, with their glass-roofed arches and quaint boutiques, were charming in a way that whispered of old-world elegance. It's said to be one of the most famous markets in England, but we weren’t there to shop. That was never really our thing.
Instead, we walked slowly, deliberately letting the streets unfold around us like a map we didn’t need to read. Earlier, we had been at Trafalgar Square, letting the energy of the crowds and pigeons swirl around us before catching the Tube at Charing Cross. Walking had become our primary mode of exploration in London. There was something deeply grounding about it.
I had grown to love the weather cool, crisp, a bit moody. It suited the city’s temperament. And maybe mine too. Then, without a word, she stopped. She pulled a folded paper map from her bag old-fashioned, worn at the creases—and studied it with a quiet focus.
She glanced around, scanned the buildings, then turned back in the direction we had come from. After a few steps, she changed her mind again and walked forward. I followed, slightly puzzled but saying nothing. This wasn’t unusual. She often had these moments sudden, intuitive turns that didn’t require explanations.
I had learned that sometimes she navigated by instinct, not landmarks. And for some reason, I trusted that. We had barely walked a few minutes when she stopped abruptly. “What happened?” I asked.
“Shh.” She pressed her fingers lightly to her lips, signaling for silence. I stood to the side, unsure what was unfolding, watching her quietly. She paced slowly forward, then back pausing to examine her surroundings.
Out came the familiar map from her bag, which she unfolded with practiced precision. She looked at it intently, then at the street signs and the nearby shops. After a moment, she crossed the road, then returned to stand beside me, eyes narrowed as if trying to align something unseen. No one else seemed to notice her movements just me.
“Can you please explain what’s going on? You're driving me nuts, you know!”
“Give me some time,” she murmured, still scanning the streets. “I’ll explain it to you later.” So I waited. Ten minutes passed. Then she took my arm firmly, and as the pedestrian light turned green, she pulled me across the street. She continued walking slowly, consulting her map, turning her head to take in every detail of the buildings and road signs.
Then she stopped again, looked over her shoulder, and said softly, “Last trip… something happened here. Right here.” She unfolded the map again and pointed to a red circle drawn in pen. “You see this? The markings?”
“What happened?” I asked, suddenly alert.
“I was here alone, walking just like we are now. I crossed the street nothing out of the ordinary. But then I looked up… and something was off. The street name didn’t match what was on my map. It was different. The shops weren’t the same either. Everything around me had changed.” I looked at her, frowning.
“Are you sure?”
“Of course I’m sure. Why would I make this up?”
“What did you do?” “I panicked. At first, I just kept walking. But with every step, the street names grew more unfamiliar. For the first time, I felt completely lost. And you know me I’ve always been good with directions. I’ve wandered all over London with this same map and never once gotten lost.
But that evening, nothing made sense. I stood there, trying to find a familiar sign, but there was nothing. It was like I had slipped into another version of the city.”
“Okay…” I said carefully. “You have no idea how frightened I was. Then I heard a voice. An old woman’s voice.” Her eyes softened as she recalled it. “I turned around. She was standing behind me small, frail, wrapped in layers of old clothes. She had a worn-out cart piled with boxes and newspapers.
And she smiled.” “What did she say?”
"She said, ‘You look lost, love… Can I help you?’”
“And…?” “I told her yes. I told her I was lost and showed her the map. I said I had been walking along this route this exact street but suddenly everything had changed. I didn’t know where I was anymore.”
“What did she do?” “She just smiled again and took my hand. Her skin was icy cold, but her touch was strangely comforting.
She said, ‘There, there, my poor love… let me see that pretty map of yours again.’”
“She sounded exactly like the wolf in Little Red Riding Hood,” I said with a laugh.
“Not funny,” she said flatly. “I’m serious. This really happened. I’m not making this up.”
“Okay, okay, sorry. So what happened next?”
“She studied the map, then pointed to a spot. ‘You’re exactly here, my love,’ she said. ‘Now cross the road, take that street over there, and everything will be as it should be.’ I thanked her and did as she said. But just before crossing the street, I looked back…”
“And?”
“She was gone. Vanished. No sign of her. Not even the cart. I walked back to where we’d been standing no side street, no alley, nothing. Just shops. And very few people around. I should have seen her walking away. But she was nowhere.”
“Wow…” She looked at me, her expression unreadable. “I know what you’re thinking. That I’m making this up to amuse you. But I’m not. Something happened that evening. I don’t know what. Who was she?”
“I believe you,” I said, though a part of me was still grappling with the strangeness. “But you know how people are. Most wouldn’t take a story like that seriously. Maybe you were just tired or”
“I wasn’t tired. Or hungry. Or lost in thought. I know what I saw. I’m always cautious when I travel alone. That was real.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, genuinely. “So you crossed the street like she told you?”
“Yes.”
“And…?”
“Suddenly, everything returned to normal. The street names matched the map. The shops were familiar again. It was like… like I had stepped out of something.”
We continued walking in silence after that. She never brought it up again. And I pretended to forget about it. We went bus hopping. Yes, exactly that—hopping from one red double-decker to another, zigzagging our way through the city as if we were on some wild urban scavenger hunt. It was her idea, of course.
"The best way to see London is from the top of a bus," she declared, eyes gleaming with mischief. “But not just one bus. Let’s bus hop!” I’d heard of pub hopping—who hasn’t? But bus hopping? That sounded completely mad.
“You’re nuts,” I told her. She just grinned. “Exactly. Come on.” And so we did it. We’d ride one bus for a few stops, then on a whim she’d tug my sleeve, shout
“This is our stop!” and we’d leap off, darting through the streets to catch another route. Sometimes we had no idea where the next bus was going. We’d chase it down the road, laughing breathlessly, waving at the confused driver as we clambered aboard.
I couldn’t believe myself me, chasing buses in the middle of London like a teenager. But it was exhilarating. Each ride revealed a different slice of the city: quiet residential lanes lined with brick houses, bustling shopping districts filled with color and chatter, sudden glimpses of hidden gardens and graffiti-covered alleyways.
It was like peeling back the layers of London’s skin, each bus offering a new lens through which to view the city. At one point, we sat on the upper deck, front row, wind tugging at our hair through the open window. The sky was a soft grey, threatening rain, but we didn’t care.
“You see?” she said, gesturing toward the blur of buildings. “This is how you get to know a place. You move through it without a plan. You let the streets decide.” I looked at her then not just amused, but amazed.
This was who she was. Always finding joy in chaos, meaning in motion. And me? I was just along for the ride. And I wouldn’t have had it any other way. We took the Tube again though don’t ask me to remember where we were heading. The names of the stations all blurred together, foreign and unfamiliar, like a language I was still learning to hear.
Since the moment I stepped foot in London, I had been overwhelmed. Everything felt so large, so old, so different. I was in the middle of what could only be described as cultural shock. This was my first trip so far from home. I had traveled before, yes—but only within the region.
Malaysia, Indonesia, Brunei… all close enough to feel familiar. But London? That was a world I had only read about in books or seen in movies. I never imagined I would find myself here, standing on ancient cobblestones, wrapped in a jacket, navigating escalators in underground tunnels that seemed to go on forever. And yet, here I was. All because of her.
This whole trip was her idea. We’d only just returned from a whirlwind trip across Malaysia when, over kopi and roti canai, she looked at me and said casually, “Let’s go to London.” I nearly choked.
“London?”
“Yeah. London, as in the UK, England, Britain whatever you want to call it,” she said, brushing it off like it was a weekend getaway.
“But it’s so expensive! I don’t think I can ever save enough.” She waved her hand.
“Aiyooo girl, think outside the box lah! If we share the cost like we did for our Malaysian trip, it won’t be so bad. We’re not going for luxury, okay? We’re going for adventure.” I was still doubtful, but she was already three steps ahead.
“Besides, I have a friend Florence. She’s a Singaporean nurse now working in London. We can stay at her apartment. That saves lodging already. The rest? We take public buses, the Tube, or we walk.
You’ll love walking in London the weather is so cool, not like back home.”
“You’ve been there before?”
“Yup. Last year. Spent two months there.” I blinked, trying to picture myself halfway across the world.
“Okay… but how much will the air ticket cost?” She grinned. “We’ll take Czechoslovakia Airlines.”
“Take what?”
“Czechoslovakia Air! One of those super budget airlines. Trust me, it’s an experience you’ll never forget. Not the smoothest ride in the world, but totally worth it.” She laughed, already pulling out scraps of paper to jot down the rough itinerary.
She had that spark in her eye that mix of boldness and mischief—as if she had just opened a new door for the both of us and couldn’t wait to step through it. And I? I just sat there and listened part nervous, part excited, but mostly in awe. Her world was so much bigger than mine. And without realizing it, mine was beginning to stretch too.
“N……………!” A voice tore through the street, sudden and unfiltered, slicing through the heavy air like a sharp knife. We were somewhere deep in a busy neighborhood, one dominated by Middle Eastern shops and restaurants.
The scent of grilled kebabs hung thick in the air, curling with smoke from open flames and mingling with the aroma of spiced meats and cardamom tea. Women in flowing black burdas moved past us silently, while the men gathered at street corners, laughing, shouting, gesturing with cigarettes in hand.
It didn’t feel like London anymore. It felt like we had stepped into another country Casablanca, Cairo, Damascus anywhere but the UK. “N! The love of my life is here! She is back!” I spun around, startled.
The voice rang out again, dramatic and full of unrestrained joy. She, however, walked calmly toward the source, as if expecting it. I followed close behind as we approached a row of food joints all of them nearly identical with their signs in Arabic and English, charcoal grills blazing in full force.
A tall man in white, white shirt, white apron, white skullcap stepped out of one of the shops, grinning ear to ear. “Oh! You’ve come back! I knew you would!” he cried.
“Come, come, meet my friends!” He waved at the men seated at low tables outside the shop, who looked up, curious. “Hey guys! This is N—remember? The Singapore girl I told you about!” They all waved in recognition, smiling broadly. One of them raised his glass.
“He’s from Morocco,” she whispered to me, a hint of amusement in her voice. “The owner of this place.” Before I could respond, another man shirt half-buttoned, glass in hand suddenly stood up and shouted, “Lee Kuan Yew! Lee Kuan Yew! May he live a thousand years!”
And just like that, the group erupted in laughter. “Let’s drink for Lee Kuan Yew!” the man shouted again, raising his glass high in a mock-toast and then, inexplicably, raised his hand in a Nazi salute.
I froze. “Oh my goodness,” I muttered. I was completely speechless. The absurdity of it all the misplaced reverence, the toast, the inappropriate salute. I didn’t know whether to laugh or cringe or run.
As we walked back toward Florence’s apartment, I turned to her. “Love of his life?” She rolled her eyes, amused. “Ah, you know these people shiok sendiri. They enjoy their own drama. Just play along. But he’s nice lah.”
“You two met… how?”
“At Speaker’s Corner.”
“Of course,” I said, not at all surprised.
“He was intrigued by me,” she continued casually. “Said it was the first time he saw a Malay girl traveling alone in London.”
“Really?”
“Apparently. Who knows if it’s true? If he says I’m the first, then sure, let him believe it. Who cares?” she shrugged. “At first, I thought he was joking. He kept talking about how he knows Malays and our culture. But then he brought me to the Malaysian Student Centre. Said he goes there often don’t ask me why.”
“He did?” I raised an eyebrow.
“Yup. Introduced me to some Malaysians there. One of the officers was quite nice. Gave me his number. Told me to contact him if I ever needed help.”
“Did you?”
“Nope. I had Florence, remember? Why go to them when I already had someone I trust?” She paused for a moment, then said, more quietly, “Better to stay away from them Malaysians.”
I didn’t ask her why. Some things, I’ve learned, are better left unspoken.
Chpt 4 / 36
