Where to start? Four days of travel and no updates, not so much sleeping either... i'm sure tonight will be different on that front at least. Pretty flowers in these parts.
I guess the beginning is a good place to start.
Kissing goodbye to friendship, familiarity and companionship I boarded flight Asia Air "X" to Kuala Lumpur on Tuesday morning (I'm not kidding, brand X airlines, they actually announce that shit); H lady had been kind enough to give me a lift to the gold coast and a goodbye without tears on either of our parts. My heart tried fairly hard to escape from my chest as I walked back inside to board; full of fear and doubt and of course... the ever present loathing. An extra 90 dollars secured my rightful place in brand X's version of first class, which basically means you don't feel so much like a sardine, but you still have to pay for meals and there is ZERO in-flight entertainment- so I attempted to attain some type of coma-like state. I had just passed cryostasis level 2 when the captain felt it his duty to announce that Brand X flight XXX had now left Australian airspace and was passing over... someone elses. 'Excellent, I thought. Thank you for the update' Clearly this man had no faith in the common decency of the white man's culture and was expecting imminent rocket attack. I managed to fall back to sleep for a while and woke up thinking oh wow- we must be almost there now! Unfortunately there was at least another 3.5 hours to go.
As we began to descend the flight hostess came and asked me to open the windows, exposing sheets of icy, 650km/h rain to fill us full of joy and confidence. As you puncture the clouds towards KL-LCC terminal, all that is visible to the eye is acres and acres, upon acres of palm-tree plantations. Great big fuckin palm trees by the million. I'm fairly sure these zany bastards get some kind of pineapple type fruit from them, or so my feeble understanding of Engrish tourism brochures tells me. If it were anywhere else in asia, those plantation would be acres of shanti-town and foodstalls- thank goodness the malay government has such a strong iron fist... (They have an emporer, how cool is that??!) As the plane hit the runway, the rain was straight up BOUNCING off the pavement, seriously seriously heavy rain. We taxied as close as allowable, right next to the stand full of air-asia umbrellas... hanging upside down by the handle. We were then treated to half an hour of visual comedy as a team of umbrella-wallas inverted them on the pavement so as to stop us winging farang from getting wet.
Flash:
About 6 hours before my flight left Aus I had realised that I was flying into a tin-shed, brand-x style airport terminal and as such, my plans of hanging out for my next flight in the airport lounge (at KL major terminal) had gone out the window.
I cleared customs without so much as a sideways glance, fought my way past the touts and taxi vendors and boarded a bus for KL SENTRAL St, no plans, no guidebook, not a fucking HINT of a clue about any of the myriad languages that are spoken in that crazy place, simply secure in the knowledge that 17 hours at an airport McDonalds would send me round the bend. I headed for a little ghetto behind Sentral Station and managed to get myself a room for about $30- out of budget, but this wasn't in the plans anyway, that is not too bad by KL standards. Viva Hotel Mexico, run by indians funnily enough- I never did work out why it was called hotel mexico. The room looked clean and had functionl bathroom facilities so I was happy. The cockroaches in my drinking glass come nightfall said otherwise.
I was pretty hungry by this point (6pm KL time) so I set out to get myself some food. I thought it was a little strange that there was not a single other white face on the street and no english signage anywhere but pinned it down to not being near anything interesting...i'm just waiting for a plane.
Just around the corner I found a little indian-run street restaurant that had plenty of people in it so I stepped up and tried to negotiate the menu and ask the waiter if he speaks english 'Kyaa ap ko angrazee atee hai?' *blank stare* I assume my Australian accent is far stronger than my attempts at hindi, or he spoke malay or one of a hundred different indian languages....yes, i'm supposed to be travelling to india too. In the end I resort to pointing and grunting, when he mentioned naan-roti, chicken and tandori in the same sentence I decided to save any more hassle and get enthusiastic about it. It was par-excellence. Fresh out of the tandoor with roti-naan (half way between the two) cooked on the top, served up with 2 small bowls of curry-sauces and no cutlery in sight. I persisted with hindi attempts at thank you 'Shukriyaa, Shukriyaa' which brought about some small amount of laughter, A response I am growing quite used to when I attempt Thai also.
I had a cup of excellent Chai for dessert, grabbed a couple of beers and headed back to the Hotel Mexico for exercise, shower and sleep. It was around bed time that I decided to re-organise my pack a little bit and get things in proper order....where the fuck is that other credit card? I could have sworn I packed it.... aaaah FUCK. The pack is emptied. The other pack is emptied. All manner of neck-hangers, money belts, wallets and storage compartments are searched in a flurry. It is nowhere. I think i'm getting...the fear. Sweat pours from every pore in my body as the cold reality of the situation bears down on me- my accounts could well be empty now. I throw my shoes on and dash out the door and into the street, armed with a fistful of ringets and the all important CUA emergency number. I feed the coins into the first machine, it beeps at me- amused that someone might actually want to make an overseas call. I run down the street and try another machine- same response. And another, and another- finally one rings the line at the other end. "Our business hours are 9am to 5pm monday to friday, please try again within these parameters" oh get fucked. I dash back up the street and into an internet kiosk, soaking wet but pouring sweat all the same and manage to get the number for visa themselves and head back to the friendly payphone, finally someone picks up at the other end, but for whatever reason she can't hear my voice and so, hangs up.
I hightailed to the nearest convenience store and bought an international calling card...again, no joy.
Getting pretty desperate by this point I asked my hotel if they could take some money and place the call for me ( it was a local number) they sternly refused, and possibly didn't understand anyway. Same act at the next 3 hotels and businesses. Finally I found an asian hotel owner that spoke fairly good english, but he wasn't keen on letting me use the phone. I ended up bribing the guy with far more money than I could possibly have hoped to spend on a phone call to anywhere and cancelled the AWOL card with specific instructions DO NOT under any circumstances, cancel the newer card as I will be stranded.... Murphy is a bastard.
