Slow News Day in Malaysia

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I hear my phone ring. It's 3.30am and I fear the worst. I answer it but I can't hear the person at the other end and I suspect they can't hear me either. The call cuts off. There's no caller ID, so I have no idea who it was. Now I'm really worried. A few minutes later a voice message comes through. It was a work client wanting to chat about a project. I'm relieved, but then a bit annoyed. I decide to wait until it's 3.30am in Melbourne and then ring him back. I'm now wide awake and so is Issy, and neither of us can go back to sleep.

We have breakfast and then lie on the beach. It's really windy, but the sun is shining brightly and there's blue sky all around us. Issy says she feels like she's being sprayed with a fine mist. I saw some men spraying weed killer earlier this morning and I tell her that maybe this is what it is. I hope not. I suspect that being sprayed with weed killer mightn't be all that good for you. After a while I feel it too. I go to investigate. The wind's so strong that it's blowing rain from a small black cloud in the far distance onto us. At least it wasn't weed killer.

I finish reading my novel. I don't have another one to read so I decide to read back over some of our earlier blog entries. I reread an early entry where I Googled "Gavin from Bangalore" and was very relieved when our blog didn't come up. I decide to do this again. I break into a cold sweat. This time Google has found our blog. I open the site. It's called "Malaysia News" and looks very official. I wonder why our blog is on a Malaysian news site. There can't be a lot going on in Malaysia at the moment. I panic. What if Gavin from Bangalore has found the blog and worked out that it was him I was writing about. What about all the other people I've written about. Issy says that I should go through and change all the names. She tells me that I should change her name, to Shakira. I'm not quite sure why she wants it changed, although I suppose it could be because I've told the world a few times that she's threatened to kill me. Her name choice also seems a tad exotic. I wonder if this has got something to do with us having been away from home for so long.....

We have a late lunch, pack, and head for the airport. It's dark. A truck carrying a container full of sugar cane has overturned next to a bridge, and we come to a standstill behind a long line of traffic. There are people, police cars and fire trucks everywhere. There's also sugar cane everywhere. There's no sign of an ambulance so hopefully no one was hurt. We see lots of fires in the cane fields. Issy says she doesn't think that they burn cane in Australia any more. She says they use pesticides to do the same job. I think I'd be happier if they went back to burning it.

The airport staff want to check our bags right through to Melbourne, but it seems they can only do this if we repack it into three bags instead of two, so we need to take everything out and repack it, on the floor, in the middle of the terminal. This is really silly. We're not carrying any more or less, just redistributing it. At least the person checking us in is a hundred times more friendly and helpful than the officious stony-faced Air France woman who wanted us to go through a similar exercise in London.

The plane's half empty, but we're too slow to claim rows of unoccupied seats so we can lie down. Quite a few people have decided it's OK for them to lie across four seats while we're left with one each. The staff don't try to stop them. The seats are tiny. I'm sure there'd be more leg room in a Cessna. I try to sleep. Parts of my legs are in the aisle because there's nowhere else to put them, and every time I think I'm just about to doze off someone treads on them and I wake up.

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