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.
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.
'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'!
