Friday, February 17, 2023
6:40 a.m. Room 607 Nan Yeang Hotel
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
I’ve jumped ahead quite a bit, and I’m currently sitting on the bed in my room at the Nan Yeang Hotel in Kuala Lumpur. I was considering a range of places to stay here, including that pod place. I was looking for a cheap place that offered good value. But I couldn’t find anything. I finally settled on the Nan Yeang. On Agoda, a double room with a private bathroom costs around seventy ringgit. And then they charge the ten-ringgit tourist tax on top of that for a total of eighty ringgit. That’s the equivalent of 275,000 ringgit or $18 US. Accommodation is more expensive in Malaysia and in Indonesia than I expected. It’s difficult to find budget places that are reasonable. I booked this room for three nights originally. Those three nights are already over, and I extended my stay for another three nights. I’m not sure what I will do after that.
I feel like I’ve been very busy for quite a while now. I don’t have much extra time on my hands, it seems. When I left off my story last time, I was in my room at the Reddoorz hotel in Bukittinggi and bemoaning the amount of rain that has been falling. At that time, I was preparing to ride my bicycle to a nearby village on the slopes of Mount Marapi. There, I was meeting a local friend, who was letting me store my bicycle in his house while I was in Malaysia. That arrangement worked out very well. The only problem is that I left a little bit late, and the ride to this house was almost all uphill, and therefore it took me longer than I expected. My friend was driving his car up from Padang, and he had sent me a location link to follow his progress. And I was being very careful to time things in order to leave on time. However, something went wrong, and on the map, he suddenly jumped far ahead and was much closer to the house than I realized. He seemed to be moving slowly at first, and I thought I had plenty of time. But then the dot on the map suddenly jumped far ahead and he was getting very close. Then I had to move fast and jump on my bike to race there to meet him.
From a certain point of view, storing my bicycle in a house ten kilometers outside of the city is inconvenient. However, I was very glad to get this offer. It helped me out a lot. And the room in the house where I ended up leaving my bicycle was perfect. It was indoors and clean and dry and safe, and there was tons of space. But more than that, the ride to this village opened my eyes to the scenic possibilities of Bukittinggi. The area on the slopes of the volcano were beautiful, and from up there, I got nice views of the surrounding valleys where the town itself is located. Everything looked gorgeous from up there. Up until that point, I wasn’t that pleased with Bukittinggi. It didn’t seem to deserve its reputation as a popular place for tourists. However, on that ride to this village, I suddenly saw it in a new light. The city and the whole region looked very attractive and interesting from up there.
My friend was waiting for me at the house and after chatting for a little while and then putting my bike inside the house, we drove back into Bukittinggi together. We had soto for lunch and then he dropped me off back at my hotel before starting his long drive to Pekanbaru. Everything worked out perfectly. After that, I had the rest of the day to relax, edit videos, and prepare for the flight the next morning. I had taken the time the day before to walk to the offices of the AWR transportation company and confirm my seat in their van and pay for it. Departure time for the van was nine a.m., and they said that pickup at my hotel would be anywhere between eight and nine. They just said I needed to be ready starting at eight in the morning.
My room at the hotel was convenient for that because I had a balcony looking out over the street, and I could stay in my room relaxing and watch for the van. And when the van showed up, I was able to jump in the bathroom for one last bathroom visit and then grab my bags and race down the stairs. I wasn’t very efficient with my packing as it turned out. Since I have my bicycle and trailer and pannier bags, I don’t have any convenient bags for airplane travel. I ended up using my two lightweight, stuffable duffel bags. And then I put those inside the raincover for my Osprey backpack. I’ve been using that as a waterproof liner inside my trailer. But this raincover is large and loose and floppy. To make it usable as luggage, I had to put the thin duffle bags inside it and then carefully fold up the raincover and tie a rope around it. It worked, but it wasn’t exactly a convenient thing to carry around. And it all started to fall apart over time. Now that I’m here in Kuala Lumpur, I will probably buy a cheap plastic luggage bag and use it just for the return trip to Sumatra.
At the time, I thought that the AWR van would be driving around to a bunch of hotels, pick up a bunch of people, and then leave directly for the airport and Padang once full. That’s why I was trying to be so careful to go to the bathroom right before getting into the van. I hate being stuck in a vehicle for hours and needing to go to the bathroom. But as it turned out, the van picked me up and then drove me to their offices first. And we hung out there until the departure time of nine a.m. as more and more passengers showed up on their own. And that worked out great because I could use the bathroom at their offices. And I was able to jump into the bathroom just a minute before we left.
I really enjoyed the drive from Bukittinggi to the airport. I was given the front seat, which was wonderful. And I had a GoPro running for much of the time. I had a little bit of a chat with the driver along the way, and I learned a couple of new Indonesian words. His name was Robbi. He was a good driver, I thought. He drove fast, of course, and there were lots of touch-and-go moments as he had to pass slower-moving trucks. But he did all this with confidence and I don’t think he took any crazy risks. I thought he was a good driver. Most of the people in the van were going to Padang. I think myself and one other person were dropped off at the airport along the way and that’s it.
I knew that I would be arriving at the airport early. My flight was at 4:45 in the afternoon. And we arrived sometime around 11:30. That gave me five hours to hang out in the airport. And I enjoyed my time there. By the time I finally boarded my flight, I had had mie ayam bakso for lunch, a hot latte with a delicious muffin, and some milk and other snacks. Unfortunately, the airport wasn’t organized in quite the way I had expected. It’s always convenient to show up and get rid of your luggage and go through security and immigration right away. And then you can go to your departure gate and fully relax with all the formalities taken care of. However, I was there so early that the Air Asia check-in counters weren’t open yet. Therefore, I couldn’t check in my luggage. I had to carry it around with me everywhere I went. And the part of the airport with the check-in counters had no coffee shops or restaurants. Those were all outside the airport. And I had gone through security to get into the airport, and it wasn’t possible to just turn around and go back through security. It doesn’t work that way. So I had to leave from the departures area and go to the arrivals halls. And then I could exit the airport from arrivals. And that was kind of funny because everyone then assumes that I’ve just arrived. Yet, as often happens in my life, I was doing a weird thing where I had just gone into the airport and then turned right around to leave the airport.
But once I was outside, I found a small restaurant serving mie ayam bakso. It was quite expensive, though. A normal bakso costs from 12,000 rupiah to 20,000 rupiah. This bakso cost 50,000. And I also got a fruit juice. And that pushed the cost of my simple lunch to 95,000 rupiah. That is a lot of money to spend for lunch in Sumatra. Even airports in Indonesia overcharge in this way. Luckily, this restaurant was air conditioned and mostly empty, and I took advantage of that to hang out and watch an entire movie on my tablet. I watched a Norwegian horror film called Viking Wolf. It was okay.
After lunch, I went back through security into the airport, but the Air Asia desks still weren’t open, and I had to find a seat and wait for another hour or two. I don’t remember how long it was, but it felt like a long time.