Visa time
Trip Start
Mar 10, 2007
1
97
153
Trip End
??? ??, 2007
Kuala Lumpur,
Malaysia
Sunday, November 18, 2007
Set on three floors above a malaysian restaurant, the village is possibly the homeliest guesthouse i have stayed in on my travels. The first floor has comfy settees, chairs, a dining table and a very practical kitchen. On the second floor you have a nice little seating area with satellite tv and dvd player and on the top floor a relaxing area with tv sofa and stereo. Top all this off with friendly helpful staff and an intriguing decor with painings done by one of the proprietors lining the walls and it makes the village a fantastic place to stay. This is just as well too as i was to be here for far too long
Cendol
. There were also a few long term residents here, who thankfully were interesting, fun and very intelligent, making our morining conversations both interesting and informative for me.Anyway, enough of the sales pitch for the village (seriously though, if your staying in KL, check this place out, its the best place i stayed in in KL), my purpose for being in Kl was twofold; firstly to get my visa for india and secondly to see Farah, my friend from when i was here before. First full day and i got straight down to business, getting to the place where they process the indian visas. Formally done at the embassy, its now been outsourced and as a result is done in a far more orderly fashion, the indians are actually made to queue like civilised people. However i was soon to find out that this has by no means made the process any more efficient...
Getting my application in, i was told i had to wait 5 days for the visa. Ok, i had expected that so no problem. I then had a shitter of a day tying desperately to book my flight to india on the net, with several different cafes refusing to let me put my details into the site, and the one which did kept declining my transaction. Thoroughly annoyed with computer, i decided i'd pay the little bit extra and get a travel agent to book it online for me, as it obviously wont let me do it! I must have visited every single travel agent in KL trying to get this done, but they all said they couldn't book it for me as i wanted to fly from bangkok and they could only book flights from Kl
us and a paper tosai
. What kind of a travel agent can't book a flight from anohter city? Evidently the rubbish idiotic KL ones. Throughly annoyed (can you tell?) i stuffed my face with chinese food before giving up on the travel agents and tried to get in contact with Farah. I must have phoned her 15 times, all with no response. I even phoned her roomate, who didn't seem to understand what was going on; the phoneline wasn't very clear and i think he thought i was just some crazy western stalker trying to get to Farah. Naturally he wasn't too helpful and i got the impression the message i left wasn't gonna get through to Farah. Giing up on all things practical as i wa having a thoroughly shitty day, i ended up going back to the village and relaxing with my fellow residents. Thank god for the village.Next day was a vast improvement. Couldn't have started the day better, making the most of the kitchen and making porridge just the retatded way i make it at home, and sitting in fornt of the news with my porridge/fruit combo, a routine i haven't done in 9 months and have sorely missed at times. Sometimes you need those home comforts, even if they are only squash flavoured porridge (shut up corrin, i like my porridge!)
After doing several boring chores, i went to pick up some photos and as i walked to the photo shop i passed a travel agent and thought 'why not, after all, i checked pretty much every other one in KL' , so i went in
farah with melakas crappy sights
. Couldn't have been happier when the woman in the office actually understood what i wanted to do (the other agents couldn't get their heads around the fact i wanted to fly from bangkok, they all wanted to sell me a flight to bangkok as well) and further more said she could book it for me. Fantiastic, so i went to a cash machine to get the money out, returning only to find that they couldn't book it either and were having the same web prolems i had had, which although annoying was reassuring for me as i now knew what the problem was, the web. Walking back to the village later, i walked past some phone boxes and again thought 'ah fuck it, why not' and tried calling Farah and She bloody well answered! I was so surprised and shocked and she was exstatic to hear from me. Frantically trying to shove enough coins into the phone so i wouldn't get cut off, we established she'd come meet me asap, so i went got a coffe and waited. Now my prospects of waiting alone ofr 5 days in a city where i have seen all the major sites seemed alot better.
Great to catch up, she informed me about her current situation and that one of the guys who was chasing her has asked her to marry him and she has accepted. She also said she had put on a few kilos recently and was soo happy and it took me a while (ok, i know im a little slow when it comes to things like this) to realise that she was telling me in a round about way that she was pregnant. Jesus, talk about things changing, it had only been about three months since i'd last seen her. Went for a meal in the fancy area of town, where i had a huge paper dosai (an indian meal i will later find out). It came out like a huge pyramid on a tray, which thoroughly impresse dme for the novelty value. After eating far too much, Farah dropped me back as she had to go to a party with some clients.
