travel and first impressions

My fourth day in Malaysia. So many things happened already that it seems impossible that we are here only 3,5 days. So many experiences, impressions, meetings, completely different and new things in any possible way. One word that can describe it is simply “wow” :)
Ok, I’ll start from the beginning. Thursday, Oct 15 was tough. Mainly because of the pressure from not getting on time before travel with work and packing, etc. But when I got to the airport things began to improve. A friend of mine, who works in DMD, made all the procedures quick and easy and we ended up in an Indian (!) restaurant discussing South Asia – Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia. I got to Dubai after 5 h flight, at 6am and was very tired because of no sleep. My body usually says “no!” to night flights and that one was not an exception. Plus, we had a stressful moment during landing – the plane was going down with air flows so fast and scary for half a minute that I started to say “good bye, life” calmly and someone started to scream. But then it was fine and we landed safely.
I got to Dubai very very tired. After 2 hours in Mahabarat (spelling?) – “quite lounge” – it felt a little better. Though there was a sign “no sleeping” in the lounge, I got my flight equipment, like air pillow and special glasses, sat in the chair and had a nap. Live started to improve again. Dubai is impressive. I didn’t go out of the airport, but from what I heard from friends, saw on the plane film, from the windows and inside the airport, I had a very mixed impression. From one side it is very comfortable, new, modern, rich, luxury etc etc. But from another – it seems very artificial and not really friendly, so despite all the material comfort, it felt quite uncomfortable there. I was trying to find a word to describe the place and a friend found a good one – Disneyland for Adults. And the second part actually adds all the negative part of the story :) It also just came to my mind that it looks like a mirage in the desert. You can see it especially when you take off and see those impressive skyscrapers in the middle of the huge hot yellow eternal sand. What was really impressive in Dubai airport is the mixture of all possible cultures, languages, faces. Even more than in NYC. It felt like there are people from everywhere there. It’s just a huge hub between Europe and Asia.
After having a 5h break I had a longer flight from Dubai to Kuala Lumpur (KL), which felt completely different from the first one. I’m sure I was the only Russian on the huge plane and one of the very few Europeans. It was a big sunny plane, friendly and relaxed staff, easy people, smiling faces, and I was lucky to have 3 seats for myself. 7 hours of flight where much easier than 5h from Moscow to Dubai. I went through the list of films and ended up watching a very special one – the animated movie of my childhood, which I loved and saw not less than 20 times but long-long ago. That was The Little Mermaid. On the plane I watched it for after 16 years and first time in English. Was exciting how well I remembered all the small details :) A little bit of sleep after, reading, another movie and I’m in KL!
Was also quite exciting to see the flight information when the plane crossed India and flew further. India is special for me and I always wanted to go there and it always seemed so far away. And now I just crossed it! It changed something in me, like dreams became more real now and l experienced this “everything is possible” feeling! :)

First thing which I noticed right away when we landed was very high humidity. We landed and immediately the windows were wet from the air. The first adjectives when I came out of the plane where: clean, modern, quite, humid, warm, colorful and cozy. It reminded me of Japan a little. The airport is big and it took a while to get to the exit and collect the luggage. Then I was met by a hotel taxi and the driver told me a little about the country on the way. As Malaysia, as well as some other South Asian countries, was British colony till 1950s, there are many signs of it still left. For example, roads are left sided, measurement is in inches, etc. The fact that almost everyone speaks English is also heritage of that times. Later I saw this mixture also in architecture and remembered about the first soap opera shown in Russia in 1980s – “Slave Izaura”. Amazing fusion of British and local culture and also incredible to see English style in this climate, its something very special.


to be continued..