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Published: November 28th 2008
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Good day,
I wasn’t planned to write this blog but because of what’s happening at the moment here in Thailand I decided to do so.
First of all, I flew to Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia after I left Philippines.
Kuala Lumpur is the capital city of Malaysia and has about 8 million people. It’s of of my favourite cities I’ve been to in south east Asia. I got there in the afternoon and spent more than 24 hours, awaiting my flight to Bangkok, Thailand. I went out into the city for a while, visiting the China Town, the Menara Tower and the Petronas Twin Towers. The first time I was here, 3 years ago, I visited the twin towers during the day only. It was the first time I saw them at night and they are “impressive”....very very beautiful. They just stand there, full of pride. I couldn’t stop looking up at the towers. The towers stand about 450 meters and were opened in 1998. For six years they were world's highest buildings, not they're the second highest (the highest is in Taiwan). To get there was easy. I stayed in a guesthouse between two LRT-stations. You just
walk to the LRT station and take a train. It’s very cheap, fast and comfortable. In Malaysia they use the Ringgit as currency (RM). € 1 = RM 4,50 / US$ 1 = RM 3,75.
In Chinatown there is a big night market and you can eat at many places for cheap. I didn’t plan do buy anything, but end up buying a cap, a short and two t-shirts. Malaysia has an interesting culture, a mix of Malay, Chinese and Indian. That’s why I really like the food here; there is a variety of everything.
A couple of days before I received an e-mail from Air Asia, telling me that they’ve put me on a later flight to Bangkok. I was supposed to leave Kuala Lumpur around 20:30, now it became 22:20, which meant that I was to arrive in Bangkok at 23:30. Of course I wasn’t very happy with the decision but there’s nothing I could do.
I arrived in
Bangkok on time. After the passport control, luggage pick up etc. it was already past midnight. The shuttle busses to the city were not riding anymore which meant that I was “forced” to take a taxi.
All of them trying to rip you off, refusing to use the meter because they know you don’t have another choice....they were telling me prices like THB 1000 (€ 1 = 45 Thai Bhat). Because I was alone this price would be too high for me, I normally don’t take taxi’s but shuttle buses or public transport. When I was in the airport I felt that there was something wrong, that something was going on. But the airport staff DID NOT give any information to passengers. Then some people told me that there are many protesters outside and apparently there were already 11 persons wounded on the motorway to the airport etc. Then I decided to stay in the airport for the night, my flight to Hong Kong (then Amsterdam) would depart at 19:00. I spent the night there and during the day I hoped that flights would start again. But then I saw that all flights that day were cancelled. The protesters were all dressed in yellow. They were giving free food and drinks to all passengers remaining in the airport...that was very kind, they were well prepared. I stayed another night in the airport but the next morning,
after hearing that all flights that day and the next day will be cancelled, I took a taxi with two Italians and we went to the city.
The protesters are accusing the current government of corruption and abuse of power; they demand them to step down. The former prime minister, Thaksin Shinawatra, was also forced to step down after he sold his own company for US$ 2 billion tax free!!! The people went into heavy protests and he had to step down...this happened in 2006. The current prime minister, Songchai Wongsawat, is a brother-in-law of Shinawatra and he too is being accused of corruption and of being a puppet of Shinawatra. People demand the whole government to resign. The military advised the government to hold new elections, but the government refuses. The protests at the airport are peaceful though, at least when I was there. Before I arrived at the airport, there were two explosions outside and that's when they decided to close the airport...but some aircrafts were still allowed to land, including mine. The thing I hated was the lack of information to the passengers from both the airport itself and the airlines. All flights were cancelled and
there was NO airline staff around. Only Thai Airways had some staff in the airport, I didn’t see any Cathay Pacific staff (my airline) in order to assist you with something.
I found myself a guesthouse in Bangkok and my airline booked me to leave on Sunday, which means I'll arrive on Monday in Amsterdam and only stay in NL for 11 days instead of two weeks. I tried to contact to Dutch Embassy but their line is always occupied so I stopped trying. Thousands of passengers are stranded in Bangkok, many of them spent a night in the airport then they started going to hotels. I’ll be staying here for a few days, don’t know what do to because I don’t want to be here at all. Maybe I'll decide to do some "sightseeing" in Bangkok again but I'm not in the mood. I'm now spending extra money I wasn't supposed to be spending in Asia at all. Apparently the Thai government will give 2000 Baht per day per stranded passenger but it's not known yet how this will work. That would be nice, it will ease the pain out of my wallet 😉 . The Dutch "Calamiteitenfonds"
would also pay a refund to affected passengers. I'll try to do this when I leave Thailand, although I know that there is a LOT of paperwork involved with this claim as it is the case with "everything" you want to do in the Netherlands. If my flight on Sunday does not continue, I'll be heading to the Dutch Embassy early Monday morning to seek for help. Hopefully the airport opens soon and I can fly out on Sunday, but now it's already known that all flights for today (Friday) and also tomorrow are cancelled! In the city the situation is good, at least in the areas I’ve drove to and the area where I stay. Apparently there are protesters around all the important government buildings in the city too.
Take care and have a nice day,
Elton
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arisha
non-member comment
malaysia is a very beautifull country