The KL trip 01

My Indonesia VISA ran out so I had to make a trip to KL (Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia) to obtain a new one. The visa lasts for 60 days but can be extended for a month, four times, giving me a total of six months. I obviously knew this trip was approaching and tried to allocate funds, but unfortunately did not try hard enough.

AirAsia is the equivalent of Ryanair and have monopolized the airways here. Now that they have established themselves and beaten down the opposition, the prices are rising. The outgoing ticket that I bought a few days ago was considerably more than I anticipated and cast doubts on the chances of this trip going smoothly.

I am not fond of flying. It is not a fear of flying rather a fear of having to sit next to a selfish, inconsiderate moron for two hours and five minutes. My worst fears were well and truly realized when I found myself sitting between two of these obnoxious species with one more in front and another behind, but no crying infants surprisingly enough.

The diminutive little girl to my left insisted on fighting me for the arm rest despite the fact that she had to stretch to reach it. Reading a magazine, turning pages over at five second intervals, her right arm was in constant motion. I don't know how many pages these magazine's have but this irritating process continued for about an hour. The guy to my right was sawing logs very loudly within five minutes and shuffling around every few minutes. No sooner had the seat belt light been extinguished did I find myself chewing on a headrest, thrust into my face by a ten-year-old sitting in front. Why such a miniaturized human needs to recline the seat is beyond me. The guy behind was beating out some rap music with his knees on my spine.

The young lady gave up the magazine after an hour and decided to sleep. I decided to read the magazine myself and you can guess which hand I used to turn the pages. She was soon irritated by this and glared at me, so I gave her the selfish and inconsiderate lecture, to which she apologized.

First job after clearing customs was to change my money into Malaysian Ringgits, second job was to find the cost of the return ticket. This was Rm700 which was Rm200 more than it was on my last visa run. Clearly I would not be flying home as I already had insufficient funds and I hadn't paid for the visa and sundry costs and I was already shy of the number.

I stocked up on carbs with a 'big muck', which I knew I would regret later, bought a phone card and headed towards town. Normally I would take a taxi, but to preserve my meager funds I explored the coach option. Good plan at one tenth of the taxi cost. The coach was air conditioned with plenty of leg room, so I was able to catch some Z's on the two hour journey.

Next, a cab ride to the embassy. The Chinese driver informed me that it was a public holiday and the embassy would be closed, but not until we were almost at the destination, it would have been better if he had said nothing, he might have even got a tip.

So, there I was, sat outside the closed embassy, faced with staying an extra night and with insufficient funds. "What could be worse" I thought to myself as it started to rain. Time to call my mate, Bob, who was my regular taxi driver when I worked here, I'll tell you more about Bob later.

I pulled his number up on my hand phone and prayed that the number still worked, hit the send button, to which the phone replied, "emergency numbers only". The card that the imbecile installed on my phone was for a blackberry and did not work in my phone. Now the depression was starting to set in, as I know that there are no shops in the area and the rain was now lashing down. "What could be worse" I thought, as the security guard armed with an umbrella came over to me.

I explained my predicament to the young chap and to my surprise, he leant me the use of his hand phone and dialed up Bob's number for me. What a nice man, a very, very nice man indeed. He even refused my offer of a few ringgits for the favor, what a star.

Bob arrived about an hour later. After enthusiastic greetings, we set off to his brother-in-law Sam's house, who fed and housed me for two nights. Sam used to be Bob's taxi partner, so I knew him well also. I guess things could have been a lot worse, as it turned out.

The blip is of The Malaysian moon. The hand held shot was woefully below standard, so I had to arty it up a bit to make it remotely blippable, sorry about that. The point is that the global location makes the quarter moon looks like a dish and has been adopted by Malaysia in its national flag.

To be continued.

Dave