The eagle has landed. On a bed. In a nice hotel room in Asia.
Monday, January 28th, 2008So, I am here. And right now, you can picture me looking exactly like this. And I mean *exactly* like this. I’m jet-lagged, remember:
Things I learned on my journey:
- A 12 hour flight isn’t half as bad as it sounds.
- ‘When Love Breaks Down’ by Prefab Sprout is a really good song (thank you, S).
- Malaysia Airlines: Maverick does not count as a classic film.
- It’s still dark in the morning in Kuala Lumpur at 6.30am.
- Malaysia is hugely green, and full of verdant hills and palm trees. Not unlike a large Majorca.
- However, Malaysia is much hotter than Majorca.
- The twin towers in Kuala Lumpur are very impressive, even from a distance.
- The agent, T, is terribly nice, and looks like my brother, only younger and Malaysian. His wife, C, is terribly nice and looks like my second cousin, only younger and Malaysian. T’s business partner R, is also terribly nice, but doesn’t look like any member of my family.
- The Malaysian Department of Immigration is housed in a building which is enormously grand and modern, in a communist sort of way, and yet which houses crappy market stalls in its lobby. Go figure.
- We drove through a state in Malaysia which sits under a raincloud every day, rather like the geographical equivalent of Charlie Brown.
- Smoking is perfectly acceptable in public areas in Malaysia. How frightfully 20th century!
- The hotel is unbelievably swanky; and I have a gorgeous room with a king size bed and a sea view.
- A flute and tabla duo playing ‘Smoke On The Water’ is surprisingly good.
- Squid tastes better than I thought it would.
- I have been up for 30+ hours, save for snoozing on the back seat of a car/747.
- I am a bit delirious.
- The ‘Smoke On The Water’ thing really happened.
