Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia - 44 hours door-to-door. And that’s not considering the difference in time zone, multiple curry dishes, nor the two hours spent hosing down in the shower to scrape off those parts of the trip that decided to leech into my skin. Curry was but a part of that equation. After the day we had yesterday, I felt dirtier than Rick Solomon after
One Night in Paris. And just as unfulfilled.
We arrived at the Hotel Istana in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia tonight around 20:30 local time (13 hours ahead of the time back home – and after having left on Saturday at 12:30 EST), on the heels of a circuitous route through Toronto, Paris and London, the last of which was an unexpected stop. 35 straight hours my eyelids kept running, clicking like shutters, until I was finally able to sleep on the twelve hour flight from London to KL.
Our flights were significantly delayed in Toronto, Paris and London – oh wait, that’s three for three – and cancelled in Paris. After much pleading in both English and French with Malaysian Air representatives in France – even pulling out the fact that SCS has a presentation first thing Tuesday morning for the Prime Minister of Malaysia – we were finally able to get seats on a flight to KL from London, England, leaving ten hours later than we had originally intended. But of course, we had to get to London first. And our bags had been lost because of complications with the cancelled flight from Paris. More than an hour later, they appeared in the nick of time and we ran to the gate just seconds prior to closing by surreptitiously jumping a few lines. Naturally, the terminal from which the plane would be leaving was miles away.
Oh, but wait – theme of the day – when we got to the gate, we found out this plane, too, had been delayed 90 minutes. At that point, it really didn’t matter as we would have been waiting several hours in Heathrow anyway, so it gave us an opportunity to see the newer (and nicer) terminal in Paris. And an opportunity for SCS to catch a Charlie nap.
The situation in France had been a bit of a farce and SCS and I had initially been laughing at our welcome to the country. The airport was beyond dated. And far beyond efficient. When we got to the desk to check in and to get our tickets, we were told the flight wasn't on the board yet and that we'd have to come back in an hour. So we made our way back down through the creepy caverns and back to the terminal's central hub to have a coffee and a pain au chocolat (I believe I have finally swayed SCS to the dark side on those at this point). When we returned to the gate, we were told that we were being given lunch at the Hippopotamus restaurant downstairs because the flight had been delayed three hours. No problems. Asking directions six times, we were finally able to make our way down to the restaurant in the 'Shopping District'. Which included a McDonald's, another restaurant, a pharmacy and a convenience store that had different names depending on which door you entered. Not much of a 'district'. Best of all, we were able to waltz out into Paris without ever once going through immigration or customs. So much for post-911 security.
The centre of the terminal was open-air and consisted of several glass tubes with moving carpets criss-crossing each other and taking people to different levels; that said, no matter where you were trying to access one, it was always going in the opposite direction. SCS likened it to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Hm, Charlie and Chocolate -- likely her two favorite things. And the sign in the elevator helpfully pointed to the floor for "Halls 2-24" and to another floor for "Hall 5". Must be a pretty big Hall. It turns out that one of the Malaysian Airlines planes from the previous day required repairs, stranding those passengers. They, in turn, took our flight, causing two days' worth of nightmares. The worst part is that we found out later they knew all along we weren't going to be flying, but didn't tell most people in enough time to make alternate arrangements. There were some pretty unhappy folks.
In the air, I saw the Eiffel Tower all lit up, and some fireworks over the Thames in London, as well as the Millennium Ferris Wheel. Flying over KL, you could see palm tree plantations as far as you looked, all ordered in perfect lines.
The hotel provides us with a great view of the Petronas Towers and is very nice, though we each described it as “worn”. We didn’t get to see much of KL on the drive in, though the Moorish architecture is one thing that certainly stands out. That’s what the next couple of days, and feet, are for – Discovery!
