Kahmani, the woman trailer driver
Kahmani Murugan follows in her father's footsteps, navigating the giant vehicles with skill and patience.
Photographs by Djohan Shahrin
For twenty-five-year-old Kahmani Murugan, driving trailers has been her dream job since she was a schoolgirl.
Kahmani leaves for work, following in the footsteps of her father who makes a living driving tankers filled with cooking oil.
Sitting behind the wheel, far above the road, Kahmani drives from Banting to Northport in Port Klang, Selangor.
She joins a queue of trailer trucks making their way towards Port Klang.
They wait for their turn at the Northport entrance, where they are checked for pick-ups and deliveries at the port. Security is tight, and each trailer is vetted for its documents and declaration of goods.
But the long wait is nothing out of the ordinary for Kahmani, who is accustomed to standing by from one destination to the next.
She carefully navigates her trailer over a steel bridge at the industrial area in Banting.
Once she has made her delivery, Kahmani heads off to pick up the next load which will involve a change of containers.
An aerial view of lorries waiting their turn to swap their empty containers for new ones at the depot in Port Klang.
A conveyor machine lifts a new container to replace the empty one on a lorry.
Kahmani drives into the storage depot to swap her empty container for a new one belonging to another company.
She fills out the necessary forms while waiting for her turn.
She also checks the wind cable at the tail of the lorry.
When her turn arrives, she watches as a conveyor machine lifts down the empty container from her lorry.
She stops at a workshop to change a blown bulb before continuing her journey.
As the night deepens, Kahmani heads to a rest stop where she will stay until morning. There, she fills out her journey log and completes some company paperwork before turning in for the night.
After completing her paperwork, she climbs down from the lorry to buy some dinner.
She finds a nearby food truck that is still open.
Then she returns to her lorry, where she pulls the curtains across the windows and locks the door.
She eats her dinner at the back seat where a makeshift bed has been set up.
After that, she stretches out to scroll through her social media accounts until her eyes begin to close.
For Kahmani, her lorry is her second home. At 6am, she will wake up and continue her long-haul trip.
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