Advertisement
Published: June 20th 2011
Edit Blog Post
So Andy & Emmas return to South East Asia almost didn't get started. Whilst checking the flight times and gates we spotted a fatal flaw in our 1am drive down to Stanstead - we flew from Heathrow. Luckily we were getting a lift from Sandra and Graham and so last minute changes were expected of us - maybe not this big a change however.
Anyway the drive down went fine and after a quick mooch around Heathrow we grabbed a sandwich and waited for our flight. The journey was longer than last time as we had to a stopover in Mumbai but the plane was much better and it wasn't until the 3rd serving of drinks that we realised nobody was paying for them - a stark difference from AirAsia where you have to pay for food and blankets.
Mumbai was uneventful and we finally landed in Bangkok at 7am. We headed straight to Khao San Road and were soon glad of a familiar area and air con room to get some sleep. The next few days were spent getting last last minute things that worked out cheaper here than back home and arranging transport down to Kuala Lumpur
to arrange our Indonesian visas when we were down there.
This proved more difficult than we thought as there had been really bad unexpected floods along southern Thailand so all bus and train transport was unreliable if not cancelled. We eventually settled on a flight with Malaysia airlines to Kuala Lumpur but could only get one for Monday and we flew to Indonesia on Wednesday giving us one less day to sort a visa than we had planned. We spent the days waiting for the flight readjusting to the heat and time difference.
We landed in Kuala Lumpur and got the express train into KL Central and after an odd encounter with a creepy old man and first time travelling American girl who he claimed was a friend of his doctors and he had been looking after her we got a taxi with the girl to Chinatown to find a place to stay. It turned out the girl had just met the old man and seemed glad to get away from him.
The place we usually stayed was full and after trying a few more we eventually got directed to one which looked like a drug den
as you came up the stairs with the broken lift. Once you hit the 3rd floor with the guesthouse however the walls were lined with plants and a jungle themed seating area. As it was late and then had cheap rooms we took an aircon room with shower and after Emma got scared by the big fish in the aquarium we crashed.
The next morning we were up early to get to the Indonesian embassy to see if we still had enough time to get a 60 day visa before flying to Indonesia where it would be more difficult to extend our visa. We walked to the embassy as we figured it wouldn't be too hot at 8am (we were wrong). Eventually we were lost and hot so we jumped in a taxi which took us two roads over and dropped us outside the embassy.
After going to the wrong entrance we were asked to hand over some ID and I was refused access as I was wearing shorts. Emma went in as she had her hareem pants on and after a nervous 10 minutes stood outside Emma came out with bad news. They had told her that
a 24 hour turnaround was possible but not only would it cost more it wouldn't be done until 11am the next day and we needed to be checking in at the airport by 11.
Plan 1 over we headed back to our guesthouse grabbing a MacDonalds breakfast and then a few more hours sleep. That night we ate on Jalan Sultan and packed for our 3rd flight in 7 days to Makassar in Indonesia.
We were staying in Makassar for less than 24 hours so some last minute searching found us a transit hotel near the airport and we got a taxi there when we landed at 5 in the evening. We ate what we hope was beef soup and got another early night for another day of flying.
Flight 4 was to Ambon in the Maluccas and both of us saw this as the real start of our trip after 1 week 5 airports and 9 hours difference in timezone.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.094s; Tpl: 0.016s; cc: 8; qc: 24; dbt: 0.0723s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1mb