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Published: August 22nd 2013
Although we were starting to feel like Nepal was home, it was time to leave and begin the next stage of our Southeast Asia journey. We packed our bags up in the morning and had time to have a nice breakfast with our friends before we left for the airport. On our way out of the hotel, the manager gave us some scarves that were apparently blessed by some deity (don't know who or what they're called). He gave this gift to us because he's so thankful for all the business that Elysia has brought him (because she recommended the hotel to all the other volunteers, and they stayed for weeks= lots of business in the off season).
Our flight left Nepal at 11:10 and we arrived in Kuala Lumpur around 6pm (about a 4 hour flight, then a 1:45 minute time difference- yes, crazy Nepal is off by 15 minutes!!!). There were a few things worth noting in our travels today.
One: the flight. We were lucky to get to fly first class on this flight! Well, we paid for it, but it was only like $50 more for the flight and it was well worth it. Even
at check in, they were super nice to us (although it could have been because we're white too). Unfortunately, we didn't have priority boarding which would have come in handy when the Nepalis became chaotic trying to get on the plane (more about that in a minute). Ohwell, it wasn't all that bad. We sat in the second row of the plane and we had completely reclining seats. The airline, Air Asia, also gave us a duvet blanket and comfy pillow so we spent much of the flight lying down. I can tell you that turbulence feels very different when you're sprawled out!
Two: the airport. I can imagine that some of the airports in India would be crazier, but Nepal seems like a mild- India. We were standing near the counter where you go to board the plane and as soon as they said that the flight would be boarding, hundreds of people stood up and pushed and shoved their way into a "line". Since we were standing there, Elysia literally got body checked by some people trying to push in. Do they realize that they're going to be sitting on the plane for so long? What's the
rush? Then we had to board a bus to take us to the plane. This was ridiculous because the plane was sitting right in front of the gate, about 30 metres away. Instead we get packed onto this bus and the bus takes off and has to drive the entire circumference of the plane until it stopped again almost back right in front of the gate. Thinking about it now, maybe they had to do a clockwise tour around the plane for good luck, just like they do with the stupas. Anyways, then we all pile off the bus and again the Nepalis are rushing to get up the stairs. We get to the top and there's the manager (we think that's what he is) that had checked us in. His English was very good and he told us that the Nepalis don't understand that it's not first come first serve, so they're all rushing to get good seats. He said they had announced this, but for so many of them it's their first time flying so they just don't know. It's funny though, because when we finally got to our first class seats, you could see the look of
Distance From the Terminal to the Airplane
This shows how close the airplane was to the terminal, and we had to take a bus all the way around it. Ridiculous!delight on their faces when they got onto the plane and saw the empty seats in first class. Then you see the disappointed look on their faces when they realized those seats weren't theirs. A couple even sat down in the front row even though their tickets were for further back. They must have thought that they had great luck from the bus ride around the plane, because no one had claimed the first seats yet. Unfortunately for them, they got kicked out to the back.
Kuala Lumpur is a very different world than Kathmandu, and we experienced reverse culture shock the moment that we stepped off the plane. Our first shocking experience was in the KL airport as we were trying to decide between taking the train or the bus to get downtown. Mike asks the woman if there's air conditioning on the train. She looks at him as if he's crazy and says "yeah...." in a puzzled way. Then he asks about the bus and she responds "of course"!!! This is already a very different world than Nepal. Maybe a world that Mike can actually live comfortably in. Once we got to the city it was almost
First Class Seats!
We can get used to this luxury! shocking to see that everything is clean, air conditioned and basically just like home. KL is a very modern city, with an Asian flare. In fact, it was so crazy to think that in the morning we had left a dusty, crazy world of beeping horns and no sidewalks, and we get to this very clean city (we can actually drink the water from the tap and eat everywhere we want to without fear of gastric retribution). We hadn't heard one car horn at all since getting to KL, despite our hotel being in a night life district of KL, so the clubbbing music was playing really loud around us. There is one street of restaurants in the neighborhood around our hotel (called Bukit Bintang) that looks so nice to hang out in, with a ton of different restaurants to try out- but it had a very western feel to it and would be probably more fun if we lived here (less of a cultural experience for our first time in Malaysia). Because we got into our hotel, Rainforest bed and breakfast, a bit late, we didn't get much exploring done today. We did go out to find us some
dinner and stumbled across Chinatown, which is not too far from the hotel. Every night all the restaurants flood into the street, as a night market gets under way. Instead of eating at one place, we sampled food from different booths. We had some fresh fruit smoothies, some exotic fresh fruit and ate some meat kebabs. Elysia isn't the biggest fan of Chinese food so we decided that filling up on crazy fruit would be more fun. We tried durians, which is a very creamy avocado like fruit (the king of fruit), although it has a really weird taste. Mike didn't like it at all, but Elysia thought it wasn't too bad... Although the taste lingered for too long. The other two fruit we tried were really good too, one was called mangosteen but we can't remember the name for the other. After wandering around this China town night market for a bit, we headed back to the hotel because it had been a long day of carrying around our heavy bags.
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chris ansell
non-member comment
street meat
I giggled.....sounds nasty