Kuala Lumpur to Melbourne Made Easy

Transcribed from my little black book, 24/09/09

Well after a late one (yet again) last night, I woke around 9:45am with the intention of being all sorted and gone within half an hour. It didn’t quite work out that way. Having to repack my bag again and getting caught up with amusing goodbye chats (mostly with Andy and Joey), it was about 10:45am by the time I left The Reggae Guest House, heading out toward Seni Pensar station, (or Pensar Sani, Pansir Seni, or in fact any combination of those letters) for a quick one stop south to KL Sentral. I hopped on the SkyBus, my prepaid hour-long ride to the Low Cost Carrier Terminal at Kuala Lumpur International Airport. Phew, let‘s say LCCT @ KIA if it comes up again, which it won’t. Fortunately I just caught the 11.05, which left me a solid 35 minutes before the check-in desk closed for the 1:40pm Air Asia flight to Melbourne. Either through bad signage or my general idiocy, I managed to wander into the wrong check-in area and spent about ten minutes pressing the shit out of touch screen incessantly informing me my passport wasn’t valid. A politely non-condescending Air Asia official pointed out I needed to head to the other side of the building. Staggeringly, I remembered his directions and lugged my bags over to one of the several large queues at the correct place with about 25 minutes before the cut-off. Fine. So long as people are queuing, surely they wouldn’t close on the dot? Would they? Fortunately, with 10 minutes left I reached the front and handed over my passport.

Click, click, type, type, click. The next thing I expected to hear was the tszzz, tszzz of a printer, then maybe a few more tszzz, tszzzs. Instead the lady enquired if I had my visa to travel to Australia. “What?! Surely I don’t need a visa. Really? A British citizen, visa, what?”

12.32pm.

“Sorry Sir, you’re not on the system as having a visa, so I can’t let you board,” her words the most courteous of daggers in my side.

Shit! Shit! Shit! “Is there anything I can do to board this plane? I have a flight to Auckland booked and a New Zealand Working Holiday Visa? I’m not the world’s least plausible fake-middle-England illegal immigrant, I promise!”

“You’ll have to talk to this guy here,” she said gesturing to the desk next to hers and a man talking at a supersonic rate into an ancient telephone. I thanked her and jumped into next door’s queue. Two people were ahead of me and it was 12:34. Three minutes seemed like three hours as I eventually reached the front, dejected and facing the prospect of spending more time in hot-and-sticky central. The man calmly informed me I could apply for a visa online. Casually scribbling down a web address on some scrap paper, he pointed me in the direction of the ‘Premier Lounge’ - my one shot at Internet-based salvation. I asked if there’s any possibility they’d keep the desk open for me - he said “Maybe ten minutes, but I can’t promise anything.”

Right. With that I hurried, but tried not to run - marking the automatic weapon wielding security personnel - to the other side of the terminal. The place was empty and I charged for the nearest computer. It turned out to be an ETA (Electronic Travel Authority) system, almost exactly the same as required for the United States, and as I recalled back in March my application for that was approved within fifteen minutes. So there was hope. Still there were ten or so pages of the web-form to fill in, and I was paranoid about mistyping. But at the same time, were I to take too long, they’d close the flight anyway, so it was all or nothing. Tap, tap, click. Tap, tap, tap, click, click. Multiplied by twenty. No criminal records, no HIV, no yellow fever, no previous names, no deportations, a promise not to work or overstay, and so on. Tap, tap, and a final click.

*Application accepted. Please note this doesn’t mean your application has been approved yet - we will let you know the outcome within 72 hours.*

I checked my email straight after. Nothing. Screw it, I had to move. Paying to twenty ringgits (£4!) for ten minutes access, I hurried again (not ran, remembering those automatic weapons) back to the desk, where I had to wait in line again. Meanwhile, at 12.52pm, the screens still said ‘Melbourne: Open’, but this clearly mattered little if the visa hadn’t gone through. Finally, a different lady asked for my passport. Gulping I handed it over. More tapping. A sort of tap, tap, click, click, tap sort of scenario, in case you’d forgotten. While the click-tap medley took place, I considered my options. I didn’t want to go back to Kuala Lumpur, so was thinking of hopping on a plane to somewhere random in Indonesia. Perhaps one of the small islands where I’d heard only crazy people live, just for a goof. Or maybe play it safe and head to Bali. The good thing was my New Zealand-bound flight out of Melbourne wasn’t for over a week and a half, so time was on my side.

But such contingencies were happily not required as the lovely lady behind the desk gave me the all-clear. Amazing! I was so elated I could have given her a pound. Maybe two! (That’s some big bucks in Malaysia!) That was meant as a joke, but on re-reading it seems more offensive and belittling - I really ought to edit it out. Not to worry, it’s on my Top Priority To Do List - just like getting through security was seconds after the tzssss tzssss-sounding device delivered my beautiful boarding pass. Of course making the flight wasn’t a done-deal until I got on the plane; turning up late at the gate could still prove disastrous. So inevitably the exit-passport-stamp lines were all massive and, as you’d expect, the one I chose was moving quickly until the guy immediately in front of me. It took five minutes of unconvincing behaviour to warrant the immigration clerk disappearing into a back room with a handful of papers. At this point I did what you should never normally do in a multiple-queuing environment: swap into to one that looks faster. I scanned for a new line with predominantly European-looking travellers - not on horribly racist grounds, but merely from what I’ve observed waiting at immigration in tons of airports all over the world. People from developing countries almost always face extra scrutiny, while a European Union, Canadian, Australian and (to a slightly lesser extent) American passport holder will almost always sail through. And those in my new line did. And so did I, not before glancing back to see my unfortunate former queuemates still stuck behind the shifty chap. They looked set for a long wait.

By this point the plane was boarding and I still hadn’t even joined one of the two 20-passenger long security lines. They were both moving at a snail’s pace. A severely disabled snail minus its wheelchair and carer. I’d already impatiently taken out my computer and removed my guaranteed-metal-detector-setting-off shoes, humming disgustingly after three days traipsing around the almost-equatorial Malaysian capital. Eventually I got through, had time for a quick pee (not that important to the story - or is it? Find out soon!) and by the time I’d found the gate, the final boarding call was being made. Double - no quadruple - hooray!

I think making the flight more than made up for missing the Bradford to London coach five days beforehand, and all the knock-on expense. Corduroy jacket, I forgive you. I hated to even think what not being on this flight (yep, I’m writing this two hours and seventeen minutes outside of Melbourne) would have cost. As another two hours are wiped from my life as I move from GMT +8 to GMT +10, I’m just glad it wasn’t £300 wiped from my bank account because of a stupid clerical oversight. Well that’s me done. I’m pooped. To end on the subject of poop - and by vague extension other bodily waste - the fact I peed after security wasn’t at all significant. Sorry for getting your hopes up.