Every morning Oscar and I travel from the hostel to the other side of campus on Jalan Biawak (Jalan means "walk" and Biawak means "Monitor lizard," so literally "Monitor Lizard Road"). Students travel in both directions on the narrow path between the sea and mangrove swamp.
Traffic patterns are the opposite of those in the U.S. In Malaysia cars have steering wheels on the right side, whereas in America steering wheels are found on the left. After a few days I got used to the flow of foot-traffic on Jalan Biawak and am now a Jalan-Pro. So jalan-jalan (let’s go walk), cepat (hurry)!
Although the campus is usually full of the hubbub of various modes of transportation zooming throughout the Universiti, on Thursday the campus becomes still, parking lots lie empty and there is not a car to be seen. The lack of cars is not because Thursdays are holidays in Terengganu. In fact, in Terengganu the weekend occurs on Friday and Saturday each week. Thursdays, however, are quiet because the Univerisiti Malaysia Terengganu (UMT) has decided that on each Thursday no motorized vehicles will be allowed on campus.
UMT’s initiative was started in an effort to bring awareness to the impact of motorized vehicles on the environment and reduce the school’s carbon footprint, meaning the total amount of greenhouse gas emission caused by an entity (such as a school). The absence of motorized vehicles allows one to better observe the impact of these vehicles on the school.
