Tuesday 18 October
Finished the last noodle cup and bought a final fried rice. Took Sim’s car to the airport. Irritating that they tell you to be there 3 hours early then don’t open the checkin counters. Also no point whatever doing web checkin because it takes just as long and they reissue different boarding cards anyway. Made a point of telling them NOT to send luggage to Perth although we are booked straight through. They still got it wrong.
Delayed by 50 minutes – there were 8 planes queued behind us when we eventually took off, and other planes landing in between. We climbed through the murk, broke clear briefly then plunged into cloud. When we emerged, everything was clear and the clouds were shiny and fluffy. There was total cloud cover for as long as we looked out, hoping for the sunset that never materialised. It seems the smog is trapped under cloud cover at this time of year. The clouds boiled up away to the West where the Himalayas start.
Immigration was quick – interestingly we had to give them index finger prints. How did they know I use that one? The pickup man was waiting and welcomed us to KL. We knew it would take an hour because the airport is a long way out. We had previously arrived late for a flight to Langkawi and been very lucky to be allowed to jump the queue and check in at another flight’s counter. The driver was chatty and well informed but we were tired by then and silence reigned after a while. This was when we started to notice a familiarity about the scenery. There are two new satellite cities out near the airport with a lot of high-rises accommodating government buildings and a technology precinct and all the workers. We seemed to be passing them on a frequent basis. The driver admitted to taking a wrong turn and accidentally ended up on a toll road. After a while, we had driven down the same stretch 3 times and were developing caring relationships with the attendants. We seemed to be locked into orbit, endlessly doing figure 8s around Putrajaya and Cyberjaya. I wondered whether Fatima would like to marry my son. It seemed that the only way to escape orbit would be to deliberately drive to Putrajaya so as to be able to drive away from it. In fairness, it was a new road and the signage was extremely confusing. Eventually, it was two full hours before the driver announced with confidence and considerable relief that he knew where he was.
The Tune hotel had booked two double rooms for us and we hurried up to one of them, opting not to avail ourselves of any of the ancillary packages for towel hire, A/C, WIFI, soap, a room key etc. It is a no frills establishment but sparkling clean, very secure and has an excellent bed and shower (and advertising on the walls). What do you expect for $12 a night? We omitted to mention our delight that China used Aussie electric plug. Not quite sure what they use here but this fine establishment has universal sockets that you could plug anything into . . even a hanging preposition.
No comments:
Post a Comment