5 Jun 2008

Oil price hike and all things bad

Yesterday was a rotter of a day for me. I had to go to Shah Alam for the Lit. tuition and when it ended at 6.30 pm decided to stay back for maghrib prayers. But at 6.40 it rained so heavily - complete with thunder and lightning. By maghrib everything was dark but the rain had stopped to a drizzle. So I decided to brave it and took off. The moment I hit KESAS the jam started. It was bad and I knew it would get worse, especially before KL. So thought I'd be clever and take the NPE instead. Bad choice. It was even worse. In fact it was so bad I couldn't even see where I was going and ended up in Jalan Klang Lama. That was the real rotter. Because I had forgotten that the price of gas was going up last night, and vehicles of all shapes and sizes, even buses, were lining up at all petrol stations to buy gas before the price went up. Its really crazy, the queue was at least half a km long in some places and three or four cars wide so they were blocking traffic left and right. Luckily I had filled up the night before, not in anticipation of the price hike but because my tank was nearly empty.
And this is the highest ever that petrol price has gone up - 78 cents. So petrol now costs us RM2.78.
Even this is lower than many of our friends overseas. In the States I think gas is around RM5.00 per litre and in Thailand around RM4. Soon I'm sure the price of other goods will follow suit. And what will the poor live on?
As for other parts of the world - there was another earthquake in Szi-chuan. More after shocks and mudslides.

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