Kuala Lumpur – AGAIN!!!
Sunday, July 13th, 2008I predicted a pretty unremarkable couple of days for the malaysian capital, do some shopping, catch up on whats new in the cinemas, sort out the visa and board the plane. Sounds pretty simple! Oh how I wish I could sever this post just there. The shopping and the cinema going went rather well, I filled up the bag to the 15 kg limit with pairs of jeans, socks, underwear, jumpers and shoes – basically all the stuff I was getting by without for the last 5 months. I have travelling through the last bit of india and all of south east asia on 4 t-shirts, 1 pair of normal shorts and 2 board shorts, a blankett and a hammock. That just wasn’t going to cut it in the low temps of south australia. I got to catch the new hulk movie and a rather silly movie called wanted. I also got to gorge myself on lots of magnificent malaysian and indian food for which the Malaysian capital is world famous for, though having chicken tikka masalla for breakfast on the second day was probably pushing it a little.
Trouble reared its ugly head when on the day of my flight I turned up at the aussie high commission to get my visa number switched to my temp passport so I could travel to the land down under. You see I purchased my visa way back when I was but an innocent cub trambling along the streets of dublin, the visa is electronic and is attached to my old passport. At the airport they just scan your airport which accesses the aussie immigration database, ticks all the boxes and hey presto you are free to wreak havoc for 365 days. The computer system they have for completing this task though had just crashed, for the first time in 3 years apparently. Again, my flight was that night…. Shiiiiiiiiit!!!! I didn’t know what to do, I thought bugger I am going to be in south east asia for ever. I gave them my malay number before heading off to the airport in an effort to get the check in crew to ring ahead to the aussie help line to get the details switched there. Much to my relief I got a call from them an hour later to state that the system was back up, someone plugged it back in I guess. My visa was okay so I could head to the airport with a clear mind.
Back to the hostel where I grabbed my bag in storage and off to the airport. The airport is about 70km outside of the city, most of it is motorway as KL is pretty small, well the centre of the city is anyways. About 10 km out the motorway I found myself staring at my watch, something wasn’t right. It wasn’t the time as I had just checked the time of the flight and I still had loads to spare, the bloody date! It was the 8th of july, a tuesday. The flight was the 9th. God I felt like a right numptie, to make matters worse I couldn’t just get off the bus and flag the next one back into KL as it was a bloody motorway all the way in, so I had to go the full way out to the airport and jump straight onto the bus just leaving, I debated whether or not to go back to the same hostel as I didn’t fancy having to explain a story that made me out to be more than a little dim, but in the end I decided what the hell. I walked right up, demanded a room as if I was never there before. The poor clerk thought he was seeing a ghost. A few beers were called for and sunk before my second, last day in KL.
I was hungover and it was hot so I just hung out and ate everything off the menu in the local food market til it was time to head for the airport again, this time for real!! Checked in, got through security and customs all in record time. Even had time to pick up some duty free and a cup of much needed coffee. For some reason they have an additional security check just before you leave the departure lounge at the air asia airport. The guy who checked me was a proper numptie. He kept me there for 10 minutes, looking at my passport picture then looking at me. Sure my hair is longer than back then but fer fecks sake its still pretty obvious that the pretty mug in the photo is yours truly, yet on he went – he even consulted some of the other security guys about the passport, my palms were just about getting sweaty when he offered me a smile and told me to enjoy my trip. Asshole… Anyways, adios Malaysia, adios Asia. It has been 7 and a half months but more importantly it has been a blast…
I’m off to get the dingo that stole my baby now!!
Phil
Phil Gill