I'm not at work today

Arriving at the international airport for Kuala Lumpur meant a 70km taxi ride into town. It took over an hour and I really should have had a fag before I got into the taxi.

I’m staying in the “Golden Triangle” part of the city which is the main nightlife and entertainment area. I found out later on in the evening that beer is more expensive than London. I never thought that would be possible but it is!

Kuala Lumpur is a busy city and it ain’t half hot!!! So my sight seeing was almost zero. I mean it has a couple of large office blocks and some shops, which as they are mostly in malls means they are air conditioned, so that’s nice

After a few exchanges of emails I was fortunately able to arrange a life to the local paragliding site. Early on Saturday morning I met up with Azhar at his place for the two hour ride to the site near the town of Bahau. Along the way we picked up 2 other members of the KLFF (Kuala Lumpur free flyers) one of whom was actually in Nepal when I was there but strangely we never bumped into each other.

It was my 1st experience of “parawaiting” but after 5 hours and one aborted take off which resulted in me almost being impaled by a piece of wood sticking up out of the ground I finally got into the air. It was my 1st real time ridge soaring and I liked it. Small thermals occasionally popped up and gave lift but most of the time it was smooth flowing air keeping you up as I went along the ridge. After about 30 minutes I hit sink and bombed out…BOO!!! The landing site for when this happens in at the bottom of the ridge and is right next to the electrical pylons…mmm. The landing was up and down on the approach but thanks too lots of practise when I was in Nepal I landed safely…yippee!!

The guys from KLFF are a great bunch of guys and they are keen to develop the area (when the government gives them the money) into “the site” for paragliding in Malaysia.

I got back to the hostel at 21:30, which gave me just enough time to have a shower and a change of clothes before making the short walk to the green man pub, the barstool and the football on the wide screen television.

For the rest of my time here I did something that I haven’t done for a while…absolutely nothing at all!