So yesterday was another day of travelling, not quite and long and hideous as getting here though. I decided to get a taxi to the train station as it was a bit of a hike and I hate using my luggage in backpack mode (as people judge backpackers, they really do) but when I got outside the hotel there wasn't a taxi in sight. Oh well walking it is. Now I travel pretty light, my luggage weighs a total of 12 kg this trip, but I'll tell you that walking a kilometre with 12kg on my back almost crippled me. How fat people manage to move around at all is beyond me, especially in the heat an humidity of the tropics. Perhaps that's why there aren't many fat people in Asia, the heat kills them all off on the way to the monorail.
Anyhow once I managed to stagger into the KL central station, dodging the same busses, cars and carbon monoxide that was there when I arrived, it all go a lot better. The train is an express straight to KLIA (that'll be Kuala Lumpur International Airport) and apparently the "fastest train in south east Asia". I'm assuming you have to be selective in your definition for that one as there are some extremely quick trains in Taiwan and China and Japan. It was pretty quick, only 28 minutes to do the same 90 minute bus trip on the way into KL. I'd recommend it and it's pretty cheap too. It also passes Putra Jaya, the new city that the Malaysian government decided it needed to prove that it's all modern and open and not megalomaniacal at all. The view from the train looks like an alien space port, all the buildings are huge and futuristic. If aliens ever come to earth they'll definitely be trying to fill up with dark matter fuel at PJ.
KLIA itself has just been voted the best airport in the world. By whom and why I couldn't tell you as its not a patch on Changi. It's pretty confusing too as all the shops appear to be landslide and not duty free. The service at check-in was terrible too, the little girl serving me had no idea what she was doing and kept getting over a guy who was sniff, sniff sniffing constantly. They sell Kleenex tissues here so there's really no excuse. It seems to be a cultural thingy; it's nothing to expectorate your nasal passages all over the floor but tissues are a disgusting western habit. Be prepared for much sniffing in Asia which is one of the few things that really turn my stomach (along with other peoples sick and eye surgery. If I ever had to watch eye surgery on a sniffing person while they were being sick I'd probably explode).
The flight to Singapore was good, so quick at only 40 minutes, and it felt really odd to get to Singapore, a place that I usually take five hours to reach, so rapidly. I've noticed something though; on every flight I've been on this year the person sitting next to me has a Blackberry and they never turn the bloody things off when they're asked. Why is that? Are they such an important "business" person that they can't or are they just so techno-ignorant that they don't know how? (Actually as they've got Blackberries I assume it's the second). I don't actually think their SMS messages are going to actually bring down a $100 million dollar aircraft, or even interfere with the navigational equipment, but it just shits me that you can't even switch off your phone for a couple of hours when there will be no signal coverage anyway!
I'd arranged to meet A, K and O at the airport for a cuppa as they were flying, at the same time, back to Oz, but when I got to Changi I had absolutely no idea which terminal I was at. I'd told them T2 but they all look the same when you are in the arrivals bit. Bear that in mind if you have to change flights here, you won't always be in the place you think you are at Singapore Airport. Luckily they found me and I was actually where I thought I was. It was nice to see them, even though O was far more interested in the fibreglass Ronald McDonald than the wonders of travel. Interesting to see the corporate brainwashing of two year olds in action.
The hotel here is very nice and expensive (I'm at a conference now so it's all a tax deduction from here on on in) but its one of those built in the 80s with a massive central atrium. I'm sure this was a great idea when you wanted your resort to look like "the future" but the glass lifts just look a little dated now. It's like staying on the set from a second rate 70s vision of the world of tomorrow. It's also a bloody nightmare for noise control, last night the noise of the piano player and 'singer' in the lounge was terrible. If I wanted to listen to warbling covers of Amy Winehouse songs I'd have gone to the Kalgoorlie sound-shell when I lived there.
My iPad just autocorrected "sound shell" to sound hell. Never a truer word made in error.
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