Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Here’s a tip for those traveling through South East Asia on a shoestring budget: If you fly on Air Asia, a low cost carrier, you should know that this airline does not pre-assign seats. Therefore, expect to be elbowed and shoved around by other passengers jockeying to get on the airplane before you, and in the name of self-preservation, prepare to elbow and shove back. I should have realized that it would be a free-for-all when I saw that my boarding pass didn’t have a seat number, and because other passengers kept trying to cut in front of me in the queue at the check-in counter, I should not have been surprised that this phenomenon would repeat itself at a larger scale during boarding at the gate.

Before boarding, don’t bother to bring a lot of carry-on luggage with you – it’ll just slow you down – unless you know how to wield it to your advantage. It also helps to have young children traveling with you – or at least claim to have young children traveling with you – as you can get priority of first seating. I’ve never seen adults so adamantly associate themselves with wild-haired, sticky-faced midgets before in my life – “Yes, I have children! Lots of them! (While shoving them through the throng of people) Now let me on that plane!!”

As soon as the boarding announcement was made, the masses descended upon and swarmed the two Air Asia employees at the gate. Restoring any semblance of order was futile. All the passengers began to squeeze into each other. I became wedged in the center of the herd and it was so tightly packed, I lost sight of my own arms.

One of the airline employees began to shout, “FORM A SINGLE LINE PLEASE! If you do not get in one line, YOU WILL NOT GET ON THE PLANE!” But everyone turned a deaf ear to his request.

While the airline staff continued to bark orders and make empty threats to little avail, one woman who was standing next to me huffed very loudly, “This is so insulting! They’re treating us like we’re barbarians! Like animals!” All the while she was expressing her disdain, her husband was slyly pushing me aside so he could step in front of me AS IF I couldn’t feel his bony elbow in my abdomen. Any little sympathy I had for her – or anyone else standing there for that matter – quickly dissipated from that point on.

Once I fought my way onto the aircraft I had to overcome the obstacle of finding a seat. People who were there before me had placed clothes, bags, whatever they had on hand on empty seats to save them for others who were still waiting to board. I had to rely on my cat-like reflexes and quickness to plant my butt in an unclaimed seat before someone else threw a handbag on it.

From the frantic chaos that ensued, it was nothing less than a miracle that the plane managed to take off with all its passengers in tow and land at its destination on time. While the flight itself went relatively smoothly I’m still bamboozled by the airline’s dreadful free-for-all seating process. I reckon that you’d be hard pressed to find anyone who actually finds it to be a pleasant experience.

At the Kuala Lumpur airport, it was so oppressively humid when I stepped outside that it felt like someone had smothered my face with a hot, wet towel. It was the kind of weather that put my entire being into a stupor. Just breathing caused me to break out in sweat. As a result, I spent much of my time in Malaysia doing very little but eating quite a lot as Indhu’s grandparents made excellent Indian food.

Highlights of the trip included:

• seeing fireflies at night by small boat outside of the city
• having dinner and catching up with Hani, a good friend of mine from high school whom I hadn’t seen in over five years
• exploring KL and eating great vegetarian food
• going up the KL Tower
• visiting a temple set within a cave
• watching a terrible Malaysian film during which Lin fell asleep because it was so bad
• spending time with Indhu’s grandparents whom I call Grandma and Grandpa.

Grandpa was our chauffeur for much of the week and his driving is nothing I’d ever seen. At the hearty age of 80+ years, he drove like a maniac with the aggressiveness and impatience of a sixteen year old. The most frequent phrase I heard while sitting in the backseat was, “C’mon lady, make a move!” before the tires would squeal and our vehicle would swerve violently around the vehicle ahead of us. I finally had to learn to stop looking out the front window and just prayed that we got to wherever we had to go in one piece. But it sure made KL ever the more exciting place to be.

Next (and final) stop – Singapore!