Travel Diaries : Malaysia - Chapter 2

2. Touchdown

We didn’t get much sleep in the four hour flight because of turbulence. It was just before dawn when Kuala Lampur city appeared below the clouds. The lightning and thunder added to the thrill. In a few minutes during the descent, darkness gave way to the first rays of the sun painting a magnificent picture on the horizon. The plane touched down at around 6:45 AM. We waited and followed the other passengers to the immigration counters. It was when we saw the sea of people in the queue that we truly realized that we are in another country. There were separate queues for people from different places… ASEAN, western countries and such. We looked around and it was like we got stuck in a Jackie Chan movie. I don’t know the politically correct term for it but would ‘Chinese looking’ be considered racist? Well... the entitled Indian male inside me wanted to raise my hands and yell, ‘Where are Indians supposed to go?’ but to our relief we saw some Indians in a queue at the far end and we joined them. Immigration, to my surprise, was a smooth affair. I mean the woman didn’t even look at me. She took a cursory look at my papers, stamped my passport and gave it back to me.

Klia2 Airport was huge and we had 5 hours to kill. Our flight to Langkawi was at 12 noon. I walked around for a bit clicking selfies like the quintessential tourist but I desperately needed tea to wake myself up and get my body clock started. So we settled near a restaurant and studied the menu. Learning to think in terms of Malaysian Ringits instead of Indian Rupees was tricky. I had 1000 Ringits to spend for the 5 days. We had bought it at an exchange rate of Rs. 14.50. What I did was to think in terms multiples of 7 since 7 ringits roughly equals a hundred rupee. I ordered tea and waited at a table. It cost me 2.50 Ringits but it did its job of reanimating me. I logged into the Airport wifi and called my dad on whatsapp. There were open wifi networks at many places in KL and that was very helpful.

We roamed around window shopping along stores of famous brands. The most intriguing one was Victoria’s Secret. If this was on TV at home, I would’ve instinctively changed the channel to save the awkwardness in front of my parents. But this was in real life and it was fascinating. A sort of sensuous glow emanated from within the store in bold colours. We stood outside and eyed the different things on display for a few more minutes. By then it was time for the flight.

The thing I remember the most about that flight was the terrifying feeling when I looked out of the window and saw only the ocean below us. Unlike the flight from Hyderabad to KL, this was in broad daylight. It was beautiful and exciting but it was also scary. When we started to descent a spectacular vision of breathtaking beauty presented itself to us. The islands looked incredible from the sky. The mountains and the beaches were picture perfect… the pure grandeur of nature was overwhelming.

To be continued...