2. No trains, just taxis, planes and a bus to Kuala Lumpur

Well, the alarm I set and checked many times before going to sleep, then a couple of times during the night in some kind of act of moral support for the heroic early effort it was going to have to make, went off and up I got. I did all the things on my list for the morning - including ‘brush teeth’, in case I entirely forgot how to be a human and didn’t do that.

I staggered into my mega hand luggage and dragged my tiny weeny bag to the station…where I discovered that all trains to Gatwick, which were initially running slightly late were either then cancelled or severely delayed (flight missingly severe). There were some other easily identifiable Gatwick travellers also on the platform - 2, I assume teenagers barely old enough to be out of school, who had got immediately on the phone to their mum, who seemed able to offer little in the way of support and another girl busily, loudly running through every alternative train route option but failing to come up with anything that would get her to the airport before her flight. I organised them into into sharing a taxi with me then organised Aqua into sending us a car with a giant boot space for all our cases. We were at the airport only 15 mins after our train would have been and delivered to the door! And because of these new whizzy smart phones, I got a refund for my train ticket on the app and everyone had transferred me money to pay the taxi before we’d even arrived. One of the teenagers had to help me do my refund but it still counts!

Check in went fairly smoothly until the checkin desk person pointed out that my big case was ‘on’ the weight limit (tutted and put a HEAVY label on it) and that my hand luggage was 3kg over allowance. Miraculously, she told me to just take some stuff out and carry it separately onto the plane as my bag wasn’t allowed to be more that 3kg. I was then to be allowed to put my lighter bag and all the detritus I’d carried separately into the overhead compartment. She marked up a little card and fixed it to my bag with her instructions. Once through security, I removed it and have successfully boarded both flights without issue and with my heavy hand luggage!

My first flight from Gatwick to Dubai went well - Emirates do nice airline dinners and the film selection is excellent for film philistines like me; I watched Top Gun Maverick and thought it was quite splendid. It involved a number of plane crashes and flight explosions though …interesting choice for a flight but I also realise that if it seems we might be about to come a cropper, Tom Cruise will wing in from stage left and save the day so all will be fine!

My connection in Dubai airport was fabulously short, thankfully. I refilled my water bottle at the drinking fountain and the water was hot … like room temp for Dubai (which was 35° when we landed in the evening!) hot. Every single sign or advert in the airport is obviously for world’s best / most relaxing/ record breaking / most toilets ever in the world resort in a destination which is apparently the highest rated tourist destination on earth. Yet they can’t even cool their drinking water. Not for me thanks!

So now I’m happily on my next flight from Dubai to Kuala Lumpur. The plane is an old and slightly smaller one (the one to Dubai was all fancy and it had an upstairs where the rich people sit like in Downtown Abbey). The screens in the seats are smaller and the air con is not as effective - or is just set to ‘cook’ temperature by a particularly sadist air steward. The man in the seat next to me doesn’t seem impressed and has huffed and puffed at me and tutted a bit, presumably because I took off my jumper and t-shirt and am now in a vest top, which still has fairly thick sleeves too it. Honestly, he’s bloody lucky I’m not just sitting here in just my pants while we all sweat it out together on this flight! He is also using both arm rests in his middle seat and keeps elbowing me. I’m thinking of having a nap … on his shoulder.

I’m quite tired and could maybe sleep a bit but am also very worried that I don’t want to miss the next dinner if they bring more plane food round for this leg of the journey. Or maybe they want us to sleep now and plan to wake us up from breakfast before we land? What a conundrum!

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Well, I can tell you they gave us a short nap time then woke us up, gave us dinner then put us to bed properly - I could tell it was nighttime because they turned the stars on in the ceiling!

The flight passed slowly but fine. Kuala Lumpur airport is an odd one, they put the tube to suck the people out onto the plane and you disembark directly into the departure lounge with people all waiting about to board then it seems the general consensus is just to wander about a bit lost, following other people who appear to also be a bit confused, finally find a sign to baggage reclaim, follow it only to find the train to take you there is out of order so a bit more aimless wandering until there is suddenly a sign for a bus and they bus you over to the arrival hall! Most odd but otherwise fine. And somewhat miraculously and to my utter surprise, my bag made it all the way and was waiting for me on the carousel by the time I’d got through passports! Oh the absolute joy!

Was made to feel terribly welcome at passports …

My taxi driver told me all about what working life is like in Malaysia for the young on basic wage - and I felt dreadful as I’d just taken out the average monthly salary here from the ATM on arrival. We also went through the classic foreign taxi driver thing of him not knowing where the place is that he’s got the address for, asking me if I know where it is and asking if it’s near other random land marks then driving to roughly the vicinity he thinks it’s in and trying to make me get out. We did eventually find it and I obviously gave the nice driver a huge tip (I think - I need to learn the conversation quite quickly!), which I imagine is the idea of his chat. I’m very early for check in but they’ve said my room will be ready in half an hour so I’m just having a drink in a nearby cafe while I write this and wait. Today I am having a frothy coffee so staying awake since I’ve missed the night and there’s another whole day to be awake for now. Tomorrow I shall teach them about proper, delicious tea & how it should be served! Once my stuff is dumped in my room, I shall be off to explore!