Travel

Leaving Coolangatta airport

So far so good. I armed myself with a book at the airport on “The Three Emperors” – GeorgeV of England, Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany and Tsar Nicholas II of Russia (the one that got bopped off), and their contributions to WW1 (all three are cousins – those royals were a pretty inbred lot). Unfortunately it’s more of a dutiful read than a rivetting one, but it still helps pass the time while in the air.

Once at Kuala Lumpur it quicky became obvious that KL must have another airport – the one I had arrived at seems to be only used by Asia Air and Tiger Air. A quick visit to the tourist information counter established that I needed to catch bus No 2 which shuttles directly between the two airports.(ticket under $1.00). People were most helpful helping me find the bus (pretty easy, and I could wheel a trolley with all my gear on it all the way), and even stopped the bus that was about to leave just as I got there so I could get on, and lifted my gear onto the bus for me.

My flight to Entebbe doesn’t board until 11:00pm (1am Brisbane time), so I was pleased to find a nice quiet bench at the airport to have a snooze on. After a 4:00am start to catch the plane some relatively confortable kip was most welcome.

I’ve just heard that the 3 day safari trip I had booked to Murchison Falls may not be a goer as they have had a last minute cancellation and need minimum numbers to make the trip.  Fingers crossed a last minute booking turns up.

Still chasing after a visa for Rwanda – it’s a long story that involves mail from Rwanda automatically going into the spam box, Rwanda’s direct email box being full and not accepting any more mail, and forms that wouldn’t accept ammended information, so I might be needing the odd guardian angel to pull a few strings. There is at least a 50/50 chance that I’ll have one by email by the time I need it. Apparently the crowd that is organising the conference is also giving a list of attendee names to the immigration department so that might help as well.

Farewell form Kuala Lumpur – next stop Entebbe.

Postscript: (90 minutes later)

Went to take the laptop out of the bag when going through to the departure lounge for Dubai and Uh-oh  no laptop. Panic backtracking, including a sprint up the down escaltors, to see  if it could be found but no joy.  Eventually ended up with the police, who were ever so friendly, and would have helped if they could. They do have security cameras, but not in the areaas where it could of gone missing – either where I (didn’t) repack it, or outside the toilet stall where I left the bag on a trolley for a brief moment. Silly me.  Anyway I now have a stamped statement from the police, with english answers to malaysian questions, and they assure me that is if should turn up they will post it to me. Guess next step is to try and contact the insurance people. It is going to cramp my photo-taking and movie-taking though – no way of downloading. Plane for Dubai ( and then Entebbe) delayed and not going until 2:00am KL time

Postscript 2:

Found the computer! In my bag, just not where I expected it to be. I thought I’d taken virtually everything out of my bag, but found it when I could feel something computer-like in my bag while looking for a book. The bag even went through two Xray checks with the computer in it and no-one said anything!

I’ve got to find a better way to pass the time.

Also it looks as though the Murchison Falls trip is going to happen – three other travellers have turned up so the guy is going to do a special trip with just 4 instead of the normal complement of 6.