Malaysia 2022/23 - #1 - Getting There

We are well into day three of this epic trip to Malaysia. Truthfully, that was not exactly our plan, to have an epic trip I mean. The original design was we would have a relatively mellow trip working out a base of operations. I am sure those who are devoted follows of the travels of de-I and Wife are astonished that things did not unfold exactly according to plan. I say that tongue in cheek as the unexpected seems to be our regular traveling companion (perhaps there is a Mystic Pegasus Mare Goddess of Travel Planning Disruption?).

As you know from my previous post, our trip began with an immediate encounter with the Magical Unicorn Pony God of Travel and a full one day delay to our start. Day two began with not only few problems but with resolution to some travel related issues from the day before. We were able to get boarding passes with seats assigned on our two, rescheduled All Nippon Airways flights. We were smart enough to go to the ANA gate desk early, as my gut told me there would be additional document checks. In fact the gate agent said, "Oh Mr. de-I we were waiting for you from yesterday." She also got us seats together which we didn't have before.

We were a bit late taking off for the 14 hour flight but had plenty of time to make our connection. This flight to Kuala Lumpur was almost 8 hours and left at midnight. Well, MUPGT had one more annoying trick. We pushed back from the gate and were hit with a two hour delay because the number of bags on the plain didn't match the number checked. Of course we only hear of this at the end. The flight attendants give detailed notices on what's happening, talking for five minutes - in Japanese. Then the English version comes and its 10 words which communicate virtually nothing. We finally found out that the number of bags loaded did not match the number that had been checked-in. So they evidently had to unload them all and recount them. 

We arrived at Kuala Lumpu International Airport without further delay. Coming in from the airport, I had forgotten how big and modern this airport was. Finding our driver was no problem and we set off for Melaka, around an hour and 45 minutes. But we need to get some kind of provisions, so we kind of talk our driver (he is just an airport transfer driver) into dropping our bags off at the house and then taking us to a supermarket. It takes an hour in the supermarket. We are really spacey. 

Then we get to the house and we are dealing with all the issues associated with coming to any new place except there are more issues because this is Asia and the place is oriented towards Asians (surprise!) like there are no butter knives, but plenty of chopsticks. I will get more into interesting aspects of the house and neighborhood in the next post. 

We bought some ready to eat food from the supermarket. We had some issues with hot water (more on that next post too). But finally had eaten and then showered. We both crashed at around 7pm. 

But we are finally here.