26 June 2018
(Bangkok, Padang Besar, Penang, Kuala Lumpur, Putrajaya)
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Kuala Lumpur International Airport: Tuesday 26th June, 2018:
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How do you know that God has a sense of humour?
Tell him your plans.
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Ten days earlier.
Bangkok: Sunday 17th June
What was once a string of smartish air-conditioned carriages on the "International Express" from Bangkok to Butterworth in Malaysia, is now a ragged collection of old sleeping cars (some for "Women And Children Only" as we pass through the tetchy Islamic southern border area of Thailand) and open-window 3rd class carriages (which will be split up in Hat Yai Junction in the morning with most of the train trundling southeast to Sungai Kolok), and two second class sleepers only permitted to continue to the Padang Besar border station in Malaysia. No longer are Thai trains allowed to enter peninsular Malaysia to Butterworth: replaced by fast and soulless new electric trains to Kuala Lumpur and beyond. Across the platform in the increasingly shabby Hua Lamphong terminus in Bangkok is the fancypants new fast-ish Chinese-built overnight Special Express to Hat Hai which leaves us in its dust as it departs earlier, and swifter, for the south.
The fading grandeur of Hua Lamphong, the vast early 20th century terminal is, itself, about to be replaced by a steel and glass airport-style terminal in the northern suburbs. I feel like I am experiencing the end of a era.
Our dining car is a grubby red and grey open-window carriage (better not to look at the state of the kitchen) with its live-in crew. The dormitory for the rest of the train crew (conductors, car attendants, cleaners, armed guards...) is attached behind our sleeping car with a murky view of prone, dozing, bare feet in green-painted-wooden-bunks, seen through the sooty carriage door as we queue for the wash room.
A trundling hour over level crossings at the end of freeways from Bangkok's old terminal, and we're passing rusty remnant scaffolds of a long abandoned "Hopewell" elevated mass transit scheme (a victim of the Asian financial crash and corruption) and trackside slums, reaching the grandiose glass and steel multi-level new Bangkok train terminal replacement under construction in the northern wastelands of Bang Sue. Orders for dinner and breakfast at your seat are taken by an hilarously over-the-top, skinny lady-of-a-certain-age who kept dropping the menu than slapping me over the knee with it before thrusting it in my general direction. Thai trains have gone "dry" since the military coup, so a civilised beer with dinner is out of the question. Orange cordial with a set meal it is then, as we wander under vast new freeway constructions, past local markets of second-hand clothes and shoes in the muddy shadows, with a Wild-West-themed facade of shopfront bars and tattoists/barbers between the concrete arches until the slow rumble over the broad brown Chao Phraya River and into outer suburbia with remnant rice paddies.
The new king's stilted, awkward, ornate official portrait seems to be everywhere: less to are images of his more respected sister and genuinely revered father.
The rest of the afternoon passed, somnolently travelling south along the rich tropical colours of the peninsular through rain showers and glistening gold and dark-wooden wats and regular stops in scrappy towns (with loud hawkers invading the train offering wondrous plastic-and-newspaper-wrapped delights and neon-coloured plastic drinks) before resuming the ambling through rich green plantations, distant shadowy-pink limestone mountains and increasing numbers of corralled, wet, beef cattle in the sunset.
7pm: the set dinner is delivered by the knee-slapper waitress to my seat in a flexible, clear, thin plastic TV dinner tray swathed in many layers of cling wrap. Orange cordial: vile. Red duck curry: actually very good and terrifically aromatic with luke-warm rice... and something gruel-like offering itself as "sweet and sour vegetable". Then another giggling slap across the knee with a promise to wake me up for breakfast: "I will LOOK AT THE TIME at Hat Yai!" is the threat...
Our white-masked car attendant has by this time abandoned his bored mobile-phone-in-a-corner stance to let down top berths and arrange sky-blue curtains either side of the aisle so that car lights will stay on all night as we snuggle into fresh linen sheets. Opposite me, the Brit senior on his "rat-run" trip to Malaysia to renew his Thai visa quickly disappears behind the curtains with sandwiches and self-catered beer, emerging only on arrival at the Malay border in 12 hours...
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Hat Yai, Southern Thailand: Monday 18th June.
Another flexing clear plastic tray swathed in cling wrap with a bottle of sickly orange cordial are thrust at me through the curtains by the giggling dining car gal as we sway through the freight yards and into the platform. Fried eggs, mystery sausage, bread, fresh fruit and no cutlery. I reach for last night's plastic spoon and Wet Ones as the underslept-worse-for-wear Penang Chinese school group around me growl and bitch about being woken by tired-looking teachers and the jolting, as we are shunted between platforms. (Good: revenge for last night's racket!). Hawkers in lime-green hijabs wander the train selling fresh Hat-Yai chicken from large plastic buckets. An elderly man gestures up at my window in slow drizzling rain from the adjacent track, trying to sell very soiled, soggy-looking Malaysian currency. At 8am a series of loud beeps introduces the Thai National Anthem, echoing across the platforms over the station's PA system.
Stomach full, teeth cleaned and bunk packed up I'm ready for the short trip to the border from a military dictatorship into (increasingly democratic) Malaysia as we pass derelict locomotives and level crossings populated by motor-scooter riders sheltering, bewilderingly large and perfectly balanced family members under plastic sheeting and umbrellas from the increasingly torrential rain.
From this point the trip becomes "interesting": it's Hari Raya (the end of Ramadan) AND the beginning of school holidays so trains south of the border are booked solid, leaving me the fun option of local train, local bus, ferry, local bus ... to make a 5.30 flight from Penang to KL. This all depends on making the local train connection, and we are late.
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Padang Besar, Northern Malaysia: Monday 18th June.
Just over the barbed wire border, the brutalist new station is heaving with crowds waiting for the slow train back into Thailand. The yelling "uniforms" try in vain to keep we arrivals separated from the departure crowd, so we "barge" towards the very speedy customs queues, delayed when the "finger machine" refuses to accept my digital prints. From there it's up slippery concrete stairs to the booking office ("NO SEATS TO KL") for a local ticket. "I THINK YOU WANT TO GO THERE!" yells a bossy Welsh woman, pointing to the platform steps. "No I Don't!" as I'm heading to the aromatic "TANDAS" blocked by a card table where two old men collect 30 SEN for urinal access.
Two hours, seated sideways on the antiseptic local electric train to Butterworth, trying to enjoy the scenery of rice paddies and green/gold and white mosques dotting the landscape to Butterworth through the crazed "panoramic" windows… Among the unhelpful maps of the Kuala Lumpur local "Komuter" train network are encouraging signs warning me not to eat, smoke or engage in "indecent behavour" (silhouette of kissing couple...).
Half an hour into the all-stops-to-Butterworth journey, all seats are gone. Two large, retired Americans (army fatigues, caps, boots, many bags) are occupying 5 seats. One little boy, dangling from the hand of his standing and very pregnant mother in a multi-beaded black coat and hijab, eyeballs them intently until the Americans wilt, moving selves and bags from the long seat. The mother gently thanks them and ensures two adjacent old ladies have first choice of seating. Outside is 90 minutes of torrential rain; inside is gentle conversation among the largely standing crowd, punctuated by the Americans largely complaining about changes in Asia and yelling into mobile phones to secure a good hotel in Penang.
Butterworth: another newish concretely cavernous station: the short walkway to the Penang ferry is blocked, replaced by a circuitous 10 minute bus shuttle in amongst a good-natured standing-room-only crowd. Local families in holiday-best clothing mix with motor scooters, car exhaust, and luggage-carrying travellers on the "feri" deck. In the organised chaos of the Penang local bus station I collide with Bossy Welsh Woman again: "Where is the airport bus? I have no airline booking? I hope I can get out of Penang tonight!"
Negotiating the esplanade to reach one of the few open cafes: the only vehicles to stop for pedestrians were a police van and "AMBULANS". A "Kopi-Toast" lunch special and a wandery local bus ride through the unlovely Penang high rises and industrial areas took me to the airport (30 minute delay) and Bossy Welsh Woman again: no seats to Medan until tomorrow afternoon and unsure where she could stay tonight... I “did” commiserations….
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Putrajaya: Thursday 21st June
Malaysian broadsheet newspapers used to be bland, highly censored versions of the controlling UMNO government's view of the world. Not now: following the astounding recent elections they are scandal sheets. They are good papers, it's just that there is SO MUCH scandal to report as the excesses of Najib Razak and his government (and his wife who had more Birkin handbags than Imelda Marcos had shoes) are spread across an eager media.
On the freeway to Cyberjaya (Malaysia's planned IT hub) and Putrajaya (a new capital city on an artificial lake: think: Canberra on Islamic steriods) are the grinning faces of 92 year-old Mahatir Mohomad (wily newly-recycled Prime Minister) and Azizah Ismail (Deputy Prime Minister and wife of Anwar Ibrahim, jailed on trumped up charges by the same Mahatir when he seemed to be a political threat to a previous UMNO government...), wishing us all a "Happy Hari Raya!" These are scattered among large poster ads for private schools such as: "MONTESSORI ISLAM: The Brainy Bunch!".
Turn left from the freeway, past the works for the new mass transit railway, and you reach the curved stainless steel edifice of the National Corruption Commission. "They are quite busy right now," our driver observes drily. We park opposite a massively, Islamically palatial Prime Minister's Residence and Offices. "This is what Najib has lost," remarks the driver. There is little traffic beyond this square and its lakeside mosque and its tour buses; we drive largely deserted streets through monumental architecture including the Ministry of Finance: "They are quite busy right now" and the national legal offices: "They are quite busy right now as well"...
Back to KL and Merdeka Square: the large mosaic portraits of Prime Ministers on the site where Malaysian freedom from British colonial power was celebrated are intact. Several attempts to deface Najib's portrait appear to have been cleaned up. Mahatir looks much younger than now, and unbearably smug.
I buy and write postcards thinking I'll post them tomorrow on the way to the midday trains from Sentral to Singapore...
Kuala Lumpur: Friday 22nd June
Wake up - sit - immediately disoriented - dizzy - nauseous - lie down - room twisting and spinning clockwise (why only clockwise?) - worse - need to vomit - cannot stand - crawl the hotel room floor, wastepaper bin before me doing cat-vomits to bathroom - cannot sit - cannot stand - cannot lie down, although cold tiles feel delightful.... - crawl back to bed - room a spinning, spasming fog - Thinks: I'll feel better in a few hours and will get to Sentral...
Wake up - feel worse - vile repeat of the above - call hotel switch to contact travel insurance company - unable to put call through - call switch again who promise they will call IT for help - deeply unimpressed between cat chucks - doze...
Wake up - grey-suited hotel manager is in my room calling my name and brandishing his mobile phone - reverse-charge speaker-phone call to Allianz in Australia - claim set up - more cat vomits - I am directed by Allianz to let them know if I need to go to hospital - "We're calling an ambulance," says the grey suited one and three other "suits" who seem to appear and try to pick their way through my handwashing and room detritus to haphazardly select what I am taking to some hospital - two smart nurses (royal blue uniforms; white hijabs) seem, now, to be watching from the sidelines - two fire-engine-red-uniformed burly Indian Ambulance men hover in the fog with a wheelchair - surely not - after a(nother) sequence of cat-vomits they pounce and plunge me into the wheelchair (head in huge plastic bag to catch stray chucks) and into the service elevator with nurses and "suits" - bundled into ambulance to travel all of two blocks - siren is on ("After all you are paying for this, so you might as well have the full service," smiles an adjacent nurse in the juddering fog - bundled into Emergency and the luxury of lying prone - between cat vomits - on a comfy gurney.
Wake up - hand a passing neurologist my GP's travel letter - saves time in taking the blurred and wandery history - lots of : "at your age you should..." comments from admitting nurse - massive shot of Stemetil: lovely stuff.... Look at clock: it's five past midday - laugh - asked why laughing when I am so ill - say: "My train to Singapore left and I'm not on it. Can laugh or cry. Laughing seems best option" - Doze... Dreams of being in Jakarta by Monday looking a tad unlikely...
Wake up - "You are being admitted - Can you walk to the Admissions counter with your Visa card and passport?" - (I don't bloody think so...) - plonked onto a passing wheelchair with head dangling back in yellow vomit bag - cannot bear to have head away from pillow - surrounded by queues in Admissions - parting like Red Sea for assertively pushed wheelchair and burly-fire-engine-red-uniformed ambo - cannot focus on key pad that is lowered at me from the counter - guess PIN - seems to work - glad something does - join queue at elevator whose doors seem to be slithering up the wall - 4th Floor - only vacancy is Women's Ward - beginning of three days of cannula/drips/blood pressure/ "At your age..." nurses' commentaries/assisted staggers to bathroom/gradually facing up to rather good hospital food....
Wake up - "I am a Neurologist," murmurs an elegant older woman with a perfect BBC accent and swathed from head to toe in olive green and gold and carrying an "Importance of Being Earnest" style handbag large enough to contain two small children - I love that she says: "At OUR age" in an imperious, Aunt Agatha tone when giving advice... "We can scan and treat you here or we can stabilise you to send you home for treatment - Through the fog I grunt for Option B: and will only be discharged when I can negotiate the vast and rocky/slithery stumble to the bathroom on my own...
Wake up: Day 2 at Sentosa Hospital - can almost focus on patients/extended families/blue-patterned curtains/uneven stained ceiling panels as they drift clockwise (why only clockwise?) - moved out of Women's ward across the corridor soon after phone call from Cawthorne in Sydney (in wheelchair to nurses' station with yellow vomit bag and head against the lovely coooool tiled counter ) - and there is wifi - focus on ipad screen is ok for about 45 seconds at a time with one eye closed - start cancelling rest of two week trip online with few regrets - can face a not-bad chicken korma dinner - ask for towel and washer to go to bathroom - mild concern as this is the role of the large extended visiting families - found – self-cleansed (after dismissing lovely nurse so I can sit on toilet seat and wash self with hand-shower) - doze....
Kuala Lumpur: Monday 25th June
Arun, the gentle Nepalese hotel security manager, visited me twice a day while I was in hospital, bringing in changes of (previously hand-washed) clothes from my pack. His wife is back in Nepal and he lives alone in an apartment behind the hotel, so I was his divertissement to and from work. Apart from: "How are you?" we talked World Cup on TV for 4 days and weekends in Penang. (I now know far more about soccer than I ever wanted to know or knew I could know or will ever need to know).
When discharged from the hospital, Arun was there to carry my pack and hold me up on the two block walk back to the hotel. I say “walk”, but the reality of my vertigo is that I was like some kind of drunk and wandery child, being coaxed back into the hotel by the sincere, suited security guy. The ever stoic Arun then ambled back out to get my hospital documentation for travel insurance and my GP, and to change some (now surplus-to-requirements) Singapore currency so I could get a limo to the airport after 30 hours’ wait to ensure I was fit to travel.
The hotel staff all “knew” me by now, so I had had the smiley kid-gloved treatment for a couple of days... and it was all a blurry delight, while I tottered around in deep vertigo trying not to collide with plate-laden diners at the spectacularly good breakfast buffet. The room had been locked and kept as I (and the suits and nurses and ambos) had left it, minus whatever Arun had delivered to me in hospital.
What could have been a potentially scary and lonely foreign experience was warm, positive and supportive in the hospital and especially due to the "above and beyond" care of the hotel staff, including their contact with Travel Insurance and friends in Australia.
Once I had medical clearance to fly home, I grabbed a "Business Class On Sale" bargain from Malaysian Airlines although sadly, the alcoholic enticements, such as they are, will be off-limits for me, but I will be able to lie flat for 9 overnight hours to Sydney... Travel Insurance will cover the economy fare only: I care deeply….not….
Kuala Lumpur International Airport: Tuesday 26th June
So here I am in the Golden Lounge, waiting for the wheelchair(!!) to take me to the nether reaches of the terminal (there will be No Photos of This!!), after a crazy limo trip to get here. I couldn’t bear to look at the passing scenery (trying to keep focused on the “still” head rest in front of me) or approaching traffic or near-misses, but couldn’t close my eyes either, as the driver quizzed me about immigration for civil engineers to Australia and what life was like for Muslims in my country. I was diplomatic and polite through gritted teeth and shut eyes.
So, it has been a bit of a roller-coaster week. I am deeply humbled by the messages from friends wanting to meet me and coddle me for the next few days and escort me straight to my Katoomba GP (and no doubt to a neurologist or hospital outpatients for scans), and then be thoroughly nursed for several days.
They have encouraged me to lie down in the Malaysian Airlines Lounge. I am so pleased to oblige....
Wake up: "Sir, it is time to go to the plane."
Through the blur, I am seeing a tall, gaunt Indian man with the face of a Grim Reaper approaching, pushing a wheelchair...
Oh dear...
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Postscript:
My Booking.com Review of the Vistana Titiwangsa Hotel, Kuala Lumpur:
"I have nothing but high praise for this hotel after suddenly falling seriously ill on my final day: hotel management and staff made contact with my travel insurer, arranged ambulance transport to a good nearby hospital, packed the belongings I would need and kept the room and my belongings safe until I could return several days later.
Hotel management contacted my family to inform them of my illness and location. One of the security managers visited me in the hospital once or twice each day, checking my progress and bringing items I needed, and then accompanied me back to the hotel before returning to the hospital for paperwork and changing money so that I could pay for a transfer to the airport following a late checkout. My days absent from the hotel and the late checkout were not charged. Staff at the restaurant and cafe and on the 9th floor were unfailingly supportive. I could not have expected or received better consideration, support and care from a hotel management and staff.
As a general review, the hotel is very comfortable, the breakfast buffet is vast and reflects the ethnicities of Malaysia and of the largely business clientele. For the rest of the day a coffee shop offers an adequate food and bar menu. Across the road is Hokkaido Seafood which offers a great menu of Malay and other dishes with a civilised beer. Between the hotel and Chow Kit station are many Bangladeshi and Pakistani and other restaurants. I chose this hotel for location and value: the free Go KL Red Line bus from Sentral (connecting to Airport trains and buses) has its terminus at the hotel. Monorail and Light rail stations close by will take you to most other parts of “tourist” KL, along with the red and blue line free Go KL buses.
No negatives, given consideration, care, comfort, service and location: a great business hotel but fine for other visitors too. In my experience, what could have been a lonely health crisis in a foreign country was made into a positive by the great team and individual managers from this hotel."
Apparently one online reader found this review "helpful".
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