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The LCCT in Kuala Lumpur
Where they spend money on nothing! It had to happen at some point; When the adventure hits what feels like rock bottom and home sounds like the best thing on earth. That happened on Friday night as we were relaxing the night before a big day of travel that would take us from Tokyo to Hong Kong, 20 hours in Hong Kong and then onto Kuala Lumpur. Something in me clicked on, and I was immediately checking my email when I saw what made my heart sink. At 11pm on Friday I realized our flight to Kong Hong had left at 5pm on Friday, not Saturday as I had thought. And we obviously weren't on it. A series of expletives flowed out, followed by some tears on my part. Our tickets were non-refundable and China Eastern Air would give us no credit. With new flights booked we woke up on Saturday at dawn and went from Tokyo to Beijing to Hong Kong to Kuala Lumpur. It was quite a day. I hope to never mix up days of flights again. I thought that was only something that would happen to a chaotic Home-Alone type family, not me. But it did and hopefully, like all things on this
journey, it's taught me something.
We stepped out of the plane in Kuala Lumpur around 1am to be greeted with the familiar Southeast Asian humidity. It was a good feeling to be reacquainted with. We clamored down the stairs off the plane onto...the tarmac where everyone on our flight was strewn about walking toward something we assumed was the entrance to the terminal. Nothing was marked. There was no “walk this line” marking, no sign saying where the entrance was, no signs saying “a plane is pulling in here so stay away,” no security to keep us from walking anywhere we'd like, no personnel to catch us had we felt the urge to run across a runway. It was a free for all on the tarmac. We followed the line of people walking somewhere as planes pulled in and parked 20 meters from us, undoubtedly about to let its passengers go in the same fashion as we were. We took pictures and pondered how illegal this would be in the US. I haven't checked but I'm assuming it's a federal offense to wander aimlessly on a tarmac in the US. Not in Kuala Lumpur! We laughed as we found
the entrance to the terminal and commented on how fun(ny) it was to be back in the land of “what the hell is happening?!”
Our plane landed in the LCCT, low-cost carrier terminal, mainly the home of Air Asia, which hubs out of Kuala Lumpur and serves most of SE Asia with unbelievably cheap flights (some even free, just pay the airport tax of a few bucks). The LCCT looks and feels like a warehouse and is about 20km away from the main airport in Kuala Lumpur where most airlines land. Once inside the LCCT they wasted no money on set-up and we were immediately in the line for immigration. The lines moved a sloth pace making me sort of frightened about what questions immigration guards would ask me or why it was taking so much reviewing to let people in. I've found that being polite and nice to immigration guards is essential. Not that I've ever been rude or mean, but those people have the power to send you directly back on the next plane out so I don't mess with them. Stupidly, I got in line with a guard who seemed to hate his job and took
his sweet, sweet time with stamping passports. Bob made it through in a different line and was waiting for me on the other side of the counters. Finally it was my turn. I walked up to the guard, passport and registration card filled out. I set it on the counter in front of him. And then he laid back in his chair , put his hands behind his head and closed his eyes. It was nap time. Lovely. How illegitimate is this place? I just wandered aimlessly on a tarmac and now the immigration dude is taking a mid-line nap? There are like 20 people behind me waiting on you, dude, and you need a nap? Now? Am I supposed to wait until you wake up? Change lines? How long is this nap going to be? Do you have an immigration boss who will soon be over here to wake you up? I'm definitely back in “what the hell is happening?!” land. I tried to ask Bob what I was supposed to do while being discrete because if this dude is sort of watching me, I don't want to anger him. He has too much power. So I stood there
and after a few minutes he opened his eyes, barely looked at my passport, stamped me in for the wrong date, corrected the date and then sent me in.
It was now around 2am and finding a way from the airport into the city and then finding a place to check in for the night at that hour isn't easy. We opted to hang out for five hours and get on a bus into the city in the morning. We've spent the night in airports before and sometimes it can be really fun so we weren't fazed. However, there is no where, honestly, no where good to sleep in the LCCT. They didn't even waste money on chairs in there. Luckily, just outside of the terminal is a few fast food restaurants and a Starbucks. We found an empty wood-seat booth in McDonalds, bought a Coke to not feel bad about loitering there and hunkered in for the night along with tons of other travelers doing the same thing - sleeping people all around us. But it was good people-watching. Malaysia is the first Muslim country I've been to so most things are new to me - food, attire
etc.
We've now wandered Kuala Lumpur for three days and done so successfully without a map. This country must be anti-map because I can't find one anywhere. I always seem to be able to pick up a city map at the airport but the LCCT is so skin and bones that there was nothing of the sort to be found.
Kuala Lumpur is an interesting place. We've seen some awesome things and some horribly gross, dirty things. Today we saw some awesome things as we wandered in the Kuala Lumpur Green Belt, home of a bird park, a butterfly park, a mouse deer park, an orchid garden and a few other similar parks. The bird garden is supposed to be marvelous but with a $12 entrance fee we passed. Instead we went to the mouse deer park which was free. We saw tons of mouse deer, which are really cute,and normal deer as well as a few lizards wandering around, an insane squirrel who I thought was going to attack us and some monkeys looking to steal food from the deer. After that we attempted to walk to the butterfly park (without a map getting to destinations is
always a question mark) and instead wandered we onto the biggest, coolest playgrounds I've ever seen in my life. They were huge! It was like all the McDonald's play areas in the world combined into one giant playground. It looked like kid paradise. And yet, it was empty. Not a soul but ours to be seen. For being a major hub in SE Asia, Kuala Lumpur seems deserted.
The city is littered with abandoned buildings. If you've seen The Life Aquatic you'll get this reference - a lot of the buildings in Kuala Lumpur look like the abandoned island Steve and Team Zissou go to to rescue their team member who gets stolen by pirates.
We have one more full day here before leaving on Thursday morning (yes, I've checked eight times that it is indeed Thursday) for Borneo! Hopefully we'll have some great experiences in the jungle and come out sans malaria. Fingers crossed.
And some random things about Kuala Lumpur:
None of the crosswalk lights work, leaving us to rely upon the street lights and guess which time is supposed to be the pedestrian turn. Luckily, the drivers here don't seem to want to
run anyone down and usually slow down if you guess the crossing time wrong.
Malay, the language in Malaysia, looks like English but spelled wrong. For example, taxi is “teksi,” bus is “bas,” police is “polis,” central is “sentral.”
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anonymous
non-member comment
Are ya sure there are no maps in KL? I got me one in KLIA and it had a lot of info. No kiddin'!