December 18 - Malaysia!

 Its a long way from Albuquerque, NM, USA to Malacca, Malaysia.  Traveling since Covid has been so much worse since before.  What with Airlines canceling the flight that had the perfect connection to the next which meant you missed the connection.  And any rebooking option meant massive layovers and more flights.  

To start off our trip on Wednesday, Dec 14 from ABQ to Houston was delayed twice, causing us to miss our flight out of Houston to Tokyo.  Any possible rebooking through Houston made the trip many many hours longer with long layovers in Japan. So we opted to rebook by changing all of our original flights to be a day later.  This was after almost 4 hours at the ABQ airport, a interrupted lunch at the airport and then another uber trip back home.  Spent a the night at home, then did the whole thing over again, but this time with a 7:30am flight out.  

Thursday our flights went relatively smoothly.  The 14 hour flight from Houston to Tokyo was l-o-n-g.  We were hoping to get a shower at the lounge in Tokyo.  Unfortunately a lot of other people had the same thought, and the showers were booked up.  

Our flight out of Tokyo to Kuala Lumpur (KL),  Malaysia was to leave at 12pm.  Everything seemed to be going well - until there was a long PA announcement in Japanese (we were on Napon Air) followed by a short message in English about a cargo problem.  Every 15 minutes or so there are more long messages in Japanese, followed by short chopped up messages saying there is some kind of cargo problem in English.  After two hours and an entire movie later, it is finally announced that we can depart.  The explanation is a little clearer this last time.  Apparently the count between the number of luggage in the cargo of the plane and the count that was supposed to be on the plane did not match.   I have not heard of that being a reason for a flight delay before!

We of course, arrive late in KL.  Mike had been texting with our driver, and the driver was checking our flight status, so we still had our ride from KL to Malacca.  It was now about 8:30 in the morning.  We are both so tired and it was about a 2 hour drive to our Airbnb rental in Malacca, plus which we need to get groceries, which was part of our deal with our driver.  Our driver is very bubbly and friendly with many accommodating suggestions and ideas.  Our driver wanted to drop us off at the grocery store for an hour and then come back and get us.  But he could not guarantee the safety of our luggage.  We ended up paying extra do drop off the luggage at the house, then immediately departed for the AEON, the closest grocery store.  

The AEON is very big, with many different food country options, Chinese, Japanese, Malaysian, Peranakan, European/American type foods plus more.  The AEON is in a massive mall.  But even within the store there are different sections where you pay for the items there separately.  Mike got some beer which he had to pay for in that section.  We needed bread - they did have a small area with pre-packaged breads - mostly white.  I did find a small loaf of whole wheat bread.  Then I discovered that the bakery was indeed, just outside the AEON in the mall.  We also wanted to get some prepared food from the delicatessen which looked like it was in the AEON, but in fact was separate and you had to go out into the mall to select your items and pay for them.  This all takes time figuring out.  I went to check the bakery and met our driver who was back early, after the agreed upon 1 hour.  I glanced at the bakery items - they looked delicious, but there would not be time to shop there.  The system at the bakery, is like many other countries we have been to.  You pick up a tray then wind through the aisles looking at all the possibilities, make your choices, ending up at a register where you pay for them.  It is like a cafeteria where it is highly rude to rush ahead and cut in line, even if you want only one item.

Our driver dropped us off at our house and sped off.  Now it was time to explore the house and figure out how things worked.  We have been to Malaysia twice before, both times at resorts or hotels so we thought we knew what to expect.

Airbnb described our house as is a Peranakan type semi wooden villa.  I had no idea when we booked the house what that meant.  But there is a lot of wood in the house - on the floors, steps and walls.  I will describe the house more in detail in another post.  

The air conditioning was not on in the house and I immediately started to drip sweat.  So that was the first thing we needed to figure out.  The aircon, as it is called here, is individual units placed high up on a wall and controlled with remotes. Many of the remotes didn't work at all or were so faint that we thought they didn't work.  We would need to call for help, but first what about hot water?  No hot water in either kitchen sink or any bathroom sink.  So another problem.  The manager sent over his helper.  She didn't speak English at all but figured out that the master switch for the hot water was turned off.  That was fixed and we tried the water in all sinks - still no hot water.  She shrugs her shoulders.  So we address the problem of getting the aircon to work.  She had no idea what we were talking about the remotes.  Another call to manager Robert.  He came over in about 15 minutes with his wife.  They live down the street and manage this house which belonged to his brother.

We did manage to figure out the remotes, new batteries, moving remotes from rooms that we wouldn't use to ones we would, to get ourselves cooled off.  Next to the water issue.  Our manager, Robert says, "There is no hot water to the kitchens -it's hot in Malaysia everything gets washed in cold water."  They were astonished that we even asked that question.  Doesn't everybody wash dishes in cold water!  I was about to ask about the bathroom sinks when I thought - of-course there is no water in bathroom sinks.  It's too hot in Malaysia!  The only place there is hot water is in the showers!  And yes now there was hot water in the showers.  

Now we get on with settling in.  We pick our rooms, who is sleeping where.  Where are we going to hang out.  Where should we set up our computers.  Suitcases are carried up the many stairs and put into rooms.  We find homes for clothes and toiletries and other sundries.  We spent the rest of the day trying to stay awake as long as we could.  Showers were taken - that felt so good!  I think I went to bed around 8 pm.  The end of two long grueling days of travel.