MALAYSIA I: BELOW THE PETRONAS TOWERS

It seems like mum´s organizational skills are inversely proportional to the length of her maternity leave. And so regardless grandma won´t land in Kuala Lumpur earlier than late afternoon on the 15th of June, we have already been here since the 14th, 6 am. Mum tries to camouflage it and claims that she wanted to have a good look around the city but everybody knows that she miscalculated the dates.

Honestly said, the 7-hour-long flight from Tokyo to Malaysia I don´t remember at all. I was already asleep on the bus to the airport, then – for appearance´s sake - I was playing a bit by the gate and when just before midnight they gave mum and me three seats on the plane, I went straight to sleep again and got up just before we landed. I think that mum didn´t have such a great sleep for a long time. (I know: considering how late she goes to bed and how often she gets up at night she still looks quite good, aye?)

The airport is far away from the city, but for once mum decided to make an investment and we took an express train and then a taxi from the railway station. From our hotel room we had a nice view towards the Petronas Towers and a little bit less shiny street of those, who – I guess – don´t work in the offices of those buildings. I didn´t even have a chance to look around when two men rushed in and started spraying everything against cockroaches. Great, welcome to Asia.

If it was hot in Japan (which it was), then I don´t really know how to describe the Malaysian climate. Well, at least I didn´t have to spend half an hour being dressed.

From our windows the Towers looked only a stone´s throw away but eventually we had a good walk (like a REAL walk, because mum refused to catch us a super cheap taxi or a tuk tuk or at least buy a train ticket – almost for free). There was a lot going on around though and I had something to have a look at all the time, so I didn´t mind too much. In the Towers, which are apparently the symbol of Kuala Lumpur, I was not interested much, but there were a nice park and a pool by them, which was cool.

In the evening we went to have a quick look at the Chinese Town (this time by the train for 50 cents), where they were selling watches and more watches and nothing to eat. In the end mum put me on the plastic chair (hard to count on how many of these I will be sitting in the next few weeks), gave me a piece of jack fruit and started to stuff herself with chicken curry and naan. Judging from how she was smacking while eating, the food in Southeast Asia might not be the worst.

When I got up in the morning grandma was not there yet so we went to see the Batu cave, which everybody talks about. I think that mum suspected that it was going to be rubbish and on top of that ugly, but we went there anyway. And rubbish it was and it was ugly. Initially probably quite a nice cave, where you have to climb maybe five thousand steps to get into, was all concreted and nowadays there are some cheesy little temples and mountains of garbage. Eventually a little cave depicting prince Rama´s story just by the railway station was much better. Not less kitschy, but at least much cleaner and far less busy.

And then we finally set off for the airport again hoping that grandma managed to change the plane in Istanbul. And we were waiting and waiting… for an hour, two… maybe the thousand people passed us by and none of them were grandma. At 7, two hours after her plane actually landed, our time came. Grandma is here and tomorrow we are all going to the beach. Hurray!

Your Annie

Some facts

When: 13. - 15. 6. 2017 Where: Kawagoe (Japan) - Haneda (Japan) - Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia) How: train, plane, express train, taxi

How long: 1 hr. + 7 hr. 5 min. + 30 min. (*2) + 1 hr. (*2) How far: 60 + 5 346 + 60 (*2) + 5 (*2) = 5 536 km