Malaysian Odyssey...

Anyone who has read this blog may get the impression that this writer is a miserable old ungrateful curmudgeon who needs to get a life and lose a bit of weight. No arguments there, so allow me to fill you in on some recent blog-worthy experiences which have largely re-charged my happiness batteries.

Now it's the Gawai season, I'm enjoying a well-earned rest after a couple of weeks of relentless travel. Yet two weeks ago, I was off to Kota Kinabalu, that jewel in the Sabahan Crown, for a one-day training workshop at my university's Kota Kinabalu campus. These things are regular gigs for me, and allow me to meet up with colleagues from different branches of my university as well as to earn some extra income...

I was giving a training workshop on how to write research articles, and my small but willing audience consisted of junior lecturers who for the most part had no idea what I was on about. That's life in the education field. Deliver your material, soak up the feedback, then make your escape....

Nothing particularly exciting happened in KK. The flyover which is supposed to reduce KK's traffic problems is still under construction (after about five years!), yet there is still a rather good fish and chip restaurant in the Warisan Square shopping mall where I managed to treat my niece and her friend to dinner. I was once again put up in my favourite hotel, the Promenade, and I felt like James Bond (your usual suite, sir!), as much as it's possible to feel like James Bond in Kota Kinabalu!

Luckily for me there were no belt buckle strain incidents, as I was travelling Business Class with Malaysian Airlines (bigger seats and marginally better food than Economy!) Lucky me! As Bond says in Casino Royale when he sees his new Aston Martin: 'I love you too, M!'

After that brief but pleasant trip, it was off to Perlis in Northern Malaysia for my next gig, accompanying my debaters for a week to a big debating contest in Arau, not far from the border with Thailand.

All went well at first on the day I departed for Arau, via KL and Alor Setar. I got seated in my Bizz Class seat on the plane at Kuching, no belt issues at all, with my boss and some of his bosses sitting in the row in front of me and a glamorous Chinese lady in the seat next to me. However, just as we were handing back the cold face towels and readying ourselves for the safety demonstration, the Captain told us to leave the aircraft while they fixed a problem with the batteries!

Now, I was under the impression that planes flew on jet fuel, not batteries, but what do I know! So we all trooped back to the departure lounge for nearly an hour, and I was sweating like a horse because for some reason the operators of Kuching International Airport don't seem to know how to turn the aircon up to a humanly acceptable level. Maybe it's a plot by the Health Ministry to make everyone look like they have H1N1 flu so that they have to spend a night in the airport's swanky emergency Swine Flu ward...

Anyway, eventually, we were allowed back onto the plane, and the whole rigmarole started again - cold face towels sir, orange juice or water sir, safety demonstration, then finally a lovely flight over to KL, with some superb Bond-like food, arriving about 5.30 in the afternoon.

I needn't have worried that I might miss my connecting flight to Alor Setar, because the plane was held up by another flight to Labuan that was supposed to have left three hours previously, and eventually filled up and crawled out of the airport at 6.30.

Finally, after a lot of waiting around, our plane arrived and we boarded. The flight to Alor Setar in Kedah state was just under an hour and I couldn't see a thing out of the windows because it was of course dark by this time! But it was nice to see what food they give you in Bizz Class on a short flight. Little pieces of French bread I think it was with some presence of salmon or strawberry or something. And some spicy peanuts which made me cough so much I was afraid they might quarantine me for having Swine Flu...

Part Two tomorrow....