SA To Thailand Travel Summary

The night before I flew I got to bed late. Shopping, admin and packing took me to 2am. Even so, I just didn’t get to everything. Being sick set me back hugely in terms of available time in SA, since I spent quite a few days recuperating.
I woke up on Thurs 29 Oct after just four hours sleep, and began to deal with copious amounts of admin. My car insurance is now back in my name. My credit card is sorted. It appears (after MUCH calling around) that I will not need a visa for my transit through Australia en route to New Zealand. Despite trying at intervals for a few hours, I could not reach the Vietnamese embassy to enquire about visa procedures. They just didn’t answer the phone. Their website is pretty crappy too.

Kevin arrived to fetch me at 10:00 and very kindly dropped me off at Jhb airport after nearly killing me a few times in the traffic. I spent a few boring hours strolling about the duty free area. Isn’t it great that you don’t pay tax when you buy from the duty free? And the only trade off is that things cost four times what they do in the high street shops. Bargain!!!! My only distraction during the dreadful duty free hours was a call from Bron J. Thanks Bron, it was great to chat!

My flight departed at 14:00. Since I flew Emirates, I had a mammoth travelling session. First I endured a 9.5 hour flight to Dubai airport. I watched Ratatouille – totally cute. I do love that rat! I tried to sleep after Ratatouille, but the combination of the crying child and the surfeit of good movies proved lethal. I gave up and watched The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - a nice movie but not a patch on how I imagined it when I read the book. I watched a couple of episodes of Dexter and that brought us to Dubai. The air hostess collected the headphone sets three minutes before the end of episode two of Dexter, leaving me champing in a fury of suspense.
Dubai airport is slick and efficient but it’s still not my first choice of where to spend three hours. One thing about the airport that made me very happy was the abundance of charging stations. This is where one can plug in one’s laptop and use the free airport wifi. Each charging station is fitted with a bank of universal plug sockets, so even my bizarre Italian plug fitted. (Bizarre Italian plug because I had to replace my laptop transformer in Italy after my original one got lost in Mallorca.) I didn’t get to sleep in the airport. I cannot fall asleep when I know that someone might scarper with my luggage, no matter how remote that chance might be.
My second flight was from Dubai to Kuala Lumpur. It was 03:00 when I staggered onto the plane, wide eyed and staring from exhaustion. The drinks trolley and then the snack trolley chased away any lurking possibility of sleep. (Dexter was not on offer on the flight and so to this day my suspense remains unassuaged.) Eventually I put a Moby cd on repeat and slept for a whole two hours. I could have cried when I was woken up by the breakfast bustle. Having flown into the rising sun (well no, not literally or else I wouldn’t be typing this) we gained a few hours and it was just about lunch time when we landed at Kuala Lumpur.

Kuala Lumpur is rather scary, as airports go. The thing is, you have to fill in this arrival card thingy. The arrival card quizzes you on all the stuff you are bringing into the country. Anything derived from plants, animals or fish is a big no no. Anyone who has been to Africa recently must report to Health Control. Ditto anyone who has coughed, sniffed, sweated, had a headache/fever/sore throat/shortness of breath etc etc etc within the past six days. Anyone importing any form of dodgy drug will be the lucky recipient of a beheading. (Or however it is that they implement their capital punishment in Malaysia.)
Trying to forget my recent bout of flu and the resultant headaches, fevers, sore throat, breathlessness, coughs and sniffles, I made my way to passport control. Ignoring the fact that I had come straight from Africa, I deliberately didn’t see where the Health Control people lurked. Reminding myself that if I started to sweat they would probably start off at the very least by quarantining me for swine flu, I pretended I didn’t have about 40 kinds of tablets in my luggage. I mean, yes they were all legitimate (antibiotics, cortisone, pain killers, anti-inflammatories, sinus medication – I am a walking pharmacy right now) but who wants to explain that to a surly looking border official while they tap on their desk with their menacing rubber gloved finger? Particularly when you’re a rock climber who is also carrying a massive stash of finely cut powder chalk. “What do you mean it looks like cocaine???” Putting my pot of Redroe fish paste out of my mind I sauntered nonchalantly past the customs blockade. Once past them, I managed to stop myself from breaking into a run by imagining a pack of ravening Alsations bringing me down in the middle of a crowd of screaming, pointing onlookers. I reminded myself that dogs can smell fear. It appears, though, that they can’t smell fish paste, Pro-nutro, milk powder, Aero or chocolate spread. Unless they’d already eaten.

Flushed with the success of my narrow escape from the border guards of death, I made short work of organizing the bus ride to the hotel, checking in and fending off the porters who queued up to help me carry my luggage to my room. I didn’t have a single ringgit on me for tipping and anyway, I’ve carried this pack for five months now, I’m damned if I am going to pay someone else to carry it from the bus to the hotel room.

Since N is whimpering at me pathetically from the other side of the room about how we need to watch a dvd on his computer now before we retire for the evening, I will cut my story short here. Stay tuned for the next riveting installment of Bronwyn’s travels from SA to Thailand!