Kuala Lumpur - Beatles mania continues...

 Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia)

A few mins post the 7-11 event, Jet provides me with an explanation of why his food made a return trip up his oesophagus rather than making a much cheaper single journey, you know, why by the return ticket if you're not coming back? Apparently it was the putrid smell of a man that was making residence just outside of the store that was the trigger. I would have put more money on the alcohol consumption myself but hey, working in tandem you kind of get the picture of where the carnage found its trigger point.

Back at the Swiss Inn Hotel at 3:30am with a quick change over required and a need to get moving to my hotel which was near the airport, both Jet and I had taken the mental and physical turn onto the corner of Struggle St and We're Tanked Drive. A familiar place, we'd stayed there a number of times. I'm doing the mental calculations and I know that we need to move  rather soon in order to have enough time up our sleeves to make the flight but we're already starting to feel the pain of  what we had accomplished just a few hours ago. I think more by sheer will than anything else we were able to make our way out of the hotel at 4:00am or thereabouts and back onto the streets. Still at that point in time I was mentally running through the logistics, thinking that even if everything works relatively well in our favour then a 6:30am flight out of Kuala Lumpur to Hanoi is going to be a tall order. Still, the great thing about KL is that you can get a cab at  most anytime of night or morning, so once we were outside the doors of the hotel a magical yellow taxi appeared just as we needed it, and whoosh,  we were swept away to the airport.

So I've heard various comments about the anticipation of travel and idealised images of travel, you know, the images and notions that you place in your head prior to getting somewhere being particularly 'idealic', kind of like glamour photography being the best form of you at a particular moment in time, (the reality is that glamour photography is for no hopers with low, low, low self-esteem). The thought or philosophy of the idyllic sense of travel being that these notions are inevitably diluted by your reality of a situation as your actual presence at the said destination (when that day actually arrives) is tainted by worries, concerns, dilemmas, thoughts, pictures of ugliness, bad hand jobs etc. Frankly I think this type of thinking is bullshit because quite often it's the element of the unknown, or the surprising elements of travel that actually make the journey even more exhilarating. Just my opinion.

Back to the story. We raced off into  the darkness of an early KL morning in order to pick up my belongings at the Tune hotel and as Jet and I drifted in and out of an alcohol induced semi coma I wondered whether it would have been an almighty tragedy if we missed the flight, I also thought of other things I'm sure but I can't seem to remember any of them for the life of me. In any case our cab does the nice thing on his part  and wakes us up about a block or so out from the Tune Hotel, it's just on 5:00am now, we're about 2 mins driving distance from the airport but I still need to pack my stuff, have bit of a wash and then split.

The Tune Hotel is one of those new wave budget style places that give you what you pay for. A bed, a wash basin, a bathroom and that's about it. It's on the cheap, so when I was planning this trip initially I picked the closest hotel to the airport that would allow me to make a 6:30am flight without the drama. I obviously didn't anticipate the all nighter that we had just pulled or even the fact that we were struggling to remain moderately sane in order to get the basics in order, i.e., passports, tickets, wallet, baggage. So I jumped into the shower, woke myself up a little, and do what I needed to. Jet immediately crashed out on the bed, obviously he's not coming back to reality anytime soon. I'm in and out of the shower relatively quickly and ready to roll at about 5:20am or so, I pull Jet out of his coma and urge him to motor because now we're cutting it fine!

5:30am, outside the Tune Hotel - KL LCCT....how tanked are we!?

Does it look better with sunnies on? KL LCCT Airport - Kuala Lumpur - Malaysia

Jet and I struggle to make it to the front of the hotel but we do. Hanging out for a courtesy bus to the airport we both do sanity checks and realise that we're still a lot closer to Wonderland than Reality World in our minds, the hysterical laughter coming from us both confirmed that line of thought. Still we manage to  make it to the airport and as usual in situations such as these where time is not working in your favour, the place is packed! My internal logistical alarm bells go off and I know that for this to be successful, we need to manoeuvre a little and take some immoral/unethical short cuts. First angle, jump the standard baggage scan queue. We do that reasonably well, even though I'm sure some people were a little ticked at the 'drunk Australians' jumping in front of them - (:). Second hurdle, our check-in counter is closed and we're directed to the 'all purpose' check in at the end of the hall. We move as best we can and jump on the back of a queue that's moving as fast as midday traffic in Caracas! Another opportunity presents itself, we tack ourselves on the back of a much shorter line that looks as though it's split into two lines, but nobody can really be certain. As we move forward we get some Pommy git start up at us,

'Oi, you realise there's a queue here'.

Jet and I are focused, we have our eyes on the prize and don't flinch. He starts up again, something akin to 'Oi, I'm talkin' to youse, there's a queue here'.

We hold our ground, there's nothing that's going to stop us from making that counter/baggage check-in on time and under budget. Again, this turkey starts up, 'I'm not taking this, why don't we take this outside!?'.

OMG, you limp dick moron!  I say something over my shoulder that I think was relatively close to  'Shut up you dickhead', and of course he ups the ante, demanding  that we  now take it outside!? Now, can you see the fatal flaw in his plan? Here he is waiting in a queue, bothered that 'someone' has jumped in front of him, obviously wasting his time, and now he wants to 1) Fight us about it, 2) Take it outside and waste even more time and 3) Probably miss his flight. Do you get the nonsensical and utterly stupid thought process going on in the head of this monkey. In any case, Jet and I call his bluff and check-in, his wife or girlfriend knowing how stupid he's being tells him to calm down, all the while the fat oath is muttering to himself about God knows what. Some people really do have shit for brains.

Thankfully it all works in our favour, we check-in, get through customs and security clearance with a few minutes to spare and pretty much walk onto the 6:30 flight to Hanoi without any troubles at all. All nighter 1 completed, and many, many more to come. Vietnam, time to be 'owned'!

Melbourne to Kuala Lumpur - From Melbourne to Beatles mania

Melbourne (Australia) to Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia)

I think most people have that inherent feeling of understanding or acceptance when they know that their day is going to travel much further than the standard 16hrs or so. Mentally  I was calibrating, undertaking old algebraic constructions, trading off time possibilities in my head as to where I may be able to manage sleep later in the day. These are the lies that you sell yourself, the side of common sense that gives way to 'Good time Charlie' somewhere on the dark, dank streets of a foreign city. That however was to be many hours ahead of me and for now, I was in the great Australian city of culture and style.

Usually when I'm down in Melbourne I kick things off at a little cafe in St.Kilda called Sultino's. Unfortunately it had almost been a year since I'd made residence here and it was on New Years Day 2009 where Jet and I were recovering from a night spent on AC/DC lane, post margarita madness on the Yarra. For this morning however the space was kind of warm, homely and just the right type of everything to make for a great breakfast. Not that it was extravagant, just a few cups of coffee, some vanilla porridge and I was good to go ,but how to describe it, I guess it's like catching those lost rays of sunlight on a windy, coldish day at the beach and basking in its warmth for as long as you can manage, kind of like that.  In any case, I made my way down to Acland street for a little shopping post morning infusion before heading down the Tulla expressway and lining up for a 13:30 flight to KL.

My trip however could have ended right there and then at the check in counter. As I was going through a process that I'd been through many times before the lady at the counter stops me and asks whether I had another passport, 'Well, no sista', I have but one'. Her face turns a little ashen, like she's preparing herself for a barrage of abuse which will be inevitable after what she's about to tell me. 'Well sir, you only have four months left on your passport, I'm not sure we can let you fly today'. Here starts my explanation. Well, I have return tickets well before the day of visa expiry, I have a Vietnamese entry visa only valid for a month, well before the expiry of my passport, what's the issue? She defaults and calls in hired help, her faulty little pop gun was not going to take on the heat of what I was packing and ready to offload. Her supervisor rocks in and explains the situation, I come back and explain mine. He tries telling me that my visa has expired to which I responded 'Um, no mate, it's not expired but it does expire before my passport does, do you know why?' Because I'm only going to Vietnam for a few weeks turkey and I'll be back a couple of days after New Years. He comes back at me with something irrelevant and then states that the visa is 'probably working in my favour' - yes, thought you might see it my way. After a little additional banter they let me on the flight.  Bloody hell, it wasn't that big a deal was it?

The flight to KL was uneventful, which is exactly how I like them. I slept a lot, watched 500 days of Summer a couple of times and then realised that the girl he catches at the end of the movie, Autumn, is way hotter and I'd much prefer watching a movie called 500 days of Autumn, instead or anything relating to Autumn really, the ditz of a guy doesn't have to even be in it, he's kind of irrelevant to the plot that's operating in my head. A few red wines, a couple of pages of reading and we were landing at KL LCC terminal right on the mark of 6:40pm as all our guide books had suggested. This was the departure point from the 'real world' and now, we entered the Frelisher zone where reality and time trading was the norm, it also suspended all semblance of rational thought as alcohol became our only companion, and so we begin.

I check into the Tune hotel which is located 2 mins by courtesy van from the airport. It's 7:30pm and our flight the next day is at 7:00am. Just to give you advanced notice, I won't be seeing the inside of this room again until about 5:00am the next day, you can kind of already tell where this story is heading, right? I also kind of know what's going to happen. I'm running logistics in my head and I know it's an hour's journey from the airport to KL proper, so two hours travel to make it there and back. I also know that Jet will be lining up for several drinks and the suggestion of an 'all nighter' will be made early. I 'know this' and yet to convince myself to move I sell myself on the notion that we'll be reasonable this evening and make our way back here, to the Tune hotel, after just a couple. As I've said many times before, many a LONG night has commenced off the back of those infamous words, 'dude, lets just go for a few'.  I walk down to reception and ask the lady what's the best way to get into the city, are there direct buses? She looks strangely perplexed and asks me 'You want to go to the city now?', 'Well yes I do, I need to get my drink on obviously!Sentral from KL LCC and there I went, I was out and on my way.

Petronas Towers act like a beacon as you drive in. You can spot them kms away, they illuminate the KL skyline, they're spectacular and most importantly they signal that you're on the right track. I make KL Sentral by about 9:30pm and I'm in Chinatown, out the front of the Swiss Hotel at close to 10:00pm. After a little FB miscommunication of 'Where are you?', I'm here where are you', Jet and I caught each other at 10:30pm. Using my 'worldly' knowledge of KL and Chinatown from the April just past I offered the option of the Beatles bar, and that's where we went!

Swiss Hotel, Chinatown - Kuala Lumpur....and no, this is at the start of the night!

The Beatles Bar, Chinatown - Kuala Lumpur - 'Where many a good night are had'

Check out the Beatles Bar right HERE (link on!)

The Beatles Bar is 'chillout' central. One side has a raised platform, each sectioned  or kind of cordoned off by a long piece of chiffon,  making the low rider table and plush cushioning kind of exclusive, in its own way. For some reason Jet was a little hesitant to take off his shoes but we  managed to get him across the line on that request and  thus commenced on round after round of mudslides. As the debauchery continued the mudslides just got more and more 'awesome'. It's funny, sometimes you just know that a holiday is going to be fantastic right off the bat and at other times you know that you'll need to work for the pleasure ,this holiday was going to be a killer, that's something I could tell right off the bat!

Chilling at the Beatles Bar, Chinatown - Kuala Lumpur

 

I don't know how many times I heard 'I am the freakin' Walrus' played but by the time we threw in a change up into the drinking mix and went for an AK-47 to round of an already hellish night of drinking we were more than three sheets to the wind with still some mileage to cover before the Hanoi flight at 7:00am (oh yeah, the flight, damn, need to remind myself of that!). We finalised the longish bill at the Beatles bar and then headed across the street to the Reggae Bar but  unfortunately its standard 'schiestordom' music was blaring there, once again. A standard hideout for English backpackers, crap R'n'B music and interest being provided by the local honey pot traps that Jet swore all had testicles. He was more than likely right.

We exited and hit the streets in search of something, not really known what that something was going to be. We were strolling along, chatting happily to strangers, stealing Malaysian flags from shopfronts and then out of left field Frichot reneges on his 'no public urination policy'. Really, I'm not sure that he ever had one but I think it's something that he should implement, even if it becomes a 'no public urination in Malaysia' policy as that might save him from evil eyes and a possible rattan on the backside form of justice that this part of the world is known for.He escaped punishment, I don't know how but he did.

As our path through Bukit Bintang continued and wreaked carnage and destruction at all points, a small hamburger vendor grabbed our attention and we loaded up for a bite. Not sure what the hell Jet was doing but he was more than certain that the dude at this joint looked like Eddie Murphy. What's more, his persistent requests to get the guy to say, 'very funny mofo' (check it out on the link), kind of fell on deaf ears. Never the less as tanked as we were, the burger went down a treat, even though on review it looked like a mix of God knows what, combined with a slice of what the f*** is that!

The Atomic Bomb burger - what the hell was in it!!?

Understandably things after this point in time got a little hazy on all counts. The food that we devoured can stand as testament to that. We managed to make our way down the street a little further, who knows how long the hell we walked or travelled or what little distance we covered but we ended up at some all night Indian joint where the offering of some type of roti with chicken 'seemed' like it was a 'duck's nuts' option. I remember sitting there with Jet as he ordered up more beers trying to focus on the time that my mobile was displaying and just thinking, 'We'll be lucky to get back to the hotel, let alone catch a flight in a few hours'. Things were just kind of blurred and our well directed stagger turned just into a stagger of randomness. As we made our way back to the Swiss Hotel, mostly by good fortune than anything, we stopped in at a 7/11 to get 'something', I think at the time I needed to pick up more food. So as I'm walking around ,inside the shop, I hear a bottle smash at the front door and a little bit of commotion. At the time I didn't make sense of what was nor even  did I realise that it was Jet that dropped his bottle of beer at the front door. Making my way out of the store I see that 'someone' has managed to deposit their dinner right at the entrance of the 7/11. When I question Jet on that occurrence he kind of smiles as says in that very drunken, embarrassed type of manner,  'Dude, that was me'.....

(This night will be continued in the next entry)

Sydney to Melbourne - Drink and fly, bloody legend!!

Sydney (Australia) to Melbourne (Australia)

 Vietnam (2009/10)

The last day of work was a cruise, some intricacies, a few loose ends tied but all in all a blind man could have passed through the eye of a needle without needing to hold his breath, or something like that. In the now time honoured tradition of the BIP bar (Business Improvement & Projects), we set up shop around our strategically placed bar fridges and gathered from far and wide in order to set proceedings for the evening and of course the weeks in advance. The Christmas period shutdown at AAPT was a week earlier than usual, meaning that if I was going to travel (which isn't really a question for me these days), then I was going to have to jump the traditional Australian Christmas and New Year , fine by me also.

Back to the BIP bar in any case. I believe that the beer of choice for this Friday afternoon was Heineken and perhaps some variant of Coopers with some residual James Squire left over from the previous week. I believe that by the time my internal alarm was set for a jump from work to Sydney domestic I was four beers to the good and already filled with the Christmas spirit, or perhaps I should say that I was just anticipating spirit, in whatever format that may have been acquired. A couple of glasses of red at the airport as holiday settlers had me all warm and fuzzy for the slightly unnerving flight down to Avalon. As I've stated on and in this blog a few times now, a couple of ordinary flight experiences and a few too many viewings of various the now infamous TV programme, Air Crash Investigation, has turned me into an anxiety riddled flyer. Mostly for take-offs and landing and sometimes for engine thrust variations that come mid-flight. Seriously, I listen to every sound imaginable, it's awful.

This occasion was different however and serves as a satisfactory precedent to what my future flights may entail, for as at the time of boarding I was feeling ever so chilled from a nice beer and red wine induced buzz. My flight effectively turned from a potential 90 min torment infested inevitability to a 5 min, find your seat and crash event. Seriously, I located my seat and within minutes was asleep, the next thing I remember was an announcement advising the cabin crew to take their seats for landing. Now that's how drink and flying should operate, up and down without clowning around. Thank you alcohol, you and I have cemented the bond that we had established in a St.Patricks tavern blaze of glory all those years ago, you are my friend, confidant and spiritual advisor.

Night one of my adventure back to the 'Nam was about as sedate as it was ever going to get. An easy drive around the bay to Albert Park and then a cruise down to St.Kilda for dinner and drinks on Acland St, then back to the Bayview just on the stroke of midnight. All relatively painless, all ever so easy, but don't be fooled just yet, this ride was far from over and we were a long, long way from home Toto (speaking of Toto, whatever happened to that band?).