Malaysian Roads Are Full Of Snakes

If you are a foreigner traveling on roads in Malaysia, you will be forgiven if you are unable to notice snakes all along your journey. In fact, not even many Malaysians will understand what I mean until you have read this and seen the accompanying pictures. And these snakes, all of them are pythons! There are so many of them by the road sides until you lost counts. May be if you are from Brunei, Singapore and Indonesia you might have noticed but do you really? Well, we in Malaysia are very fortunate to have thousands of helpful snakes by the road sides every day we are on the road.

These pythons are most commonly to be found near schools, bridges, junctions, hospitals or other dangerous locations of Malaysian roads. When you see one, please drive carefully and slowly. Not that these pythons are are going to swallow you wholesome but you will see why.

You see, AWAS on Malaysian roads are equivalent to DANGER in English speaking countries. The transformation of AWAS into python is when you have passed the road signs and immediately look at your side mirror. That is when you will see these snakes, pythons that is. For AWAS when seen from a side mirror of a vehicle will in a flick of an eye becomes SAWA; (Or at least looks more like one if not for the letter S). SAWA in Malay is PYTHON in English. So there you have it. To prove my points, please see pictures below.

As seen from ahead. AWAS the DANGER sign.

As seen from your side mirrors, now it becomes SAWA, the python.

A close-up of AWAS the DANGER sign.

The close-up from your side mirror, you see the huge SAWA the python.

Therefore then, you have been warned. Either you smile or I smile!