Bigfoot's World Tour!
19th Dec 2008 - 21st Jan 20093 Countries, 52 hours and no money! For our last night together we decided to have a nice meal and some drinks, but have an early one since I had to be up at 6am... We got in at 4am! So that didn`t bode well. I missed my pick up for the ferry! But I might still make it to there if I rushed, so I got a twenty quid taxi to the ferry port just in time to see my boat sail out of the port! So paid another twenty quid to get back home, and spent another night in Thailand on my own while the girls made it up to Bangkok.Managed to catch my ferry the day after and I finally got to KL after 1 boat, 4 buses and 24 hours!!! I noticed along the way that I`d lost my main bank card, no doubt in one of the buses I think. Nightmare. But it`s ok, I have another one... All fine. We finally rocked up in KL at 4am rather than 6. Great I thought, I can go uncancel that room I`ve paid for and get some kip and a shower. Haha, fate has other plans! I went to 3 ATMs with my other card, nothing... contact your bank! I try my credit card, but don`t know the pin. So it`s now just gone 4am, I have no money, no bank cards, no phone, nothing! I saw some guy who was flogging taxis by the bus stop so went to see if he knew where Tune Hotel was. Of course he did, and of course it`s 4 million miles from where I was! He said the ATMs round there don`t work from 12-6am but he`d get a taxi mate of his to take me to one that did then to Tune. So this dodgy dude takes me to a HSBC, but still nothing. That was the end of that. What to do? What to do? I remembered I had Thai Baht, about 1.5k worth, so wandered round trying to find a 24 hour money exchange... Nothing! At this point having walked God knows how many miles I started to feel a bit defeated by the situation. These I think are the times when traveling alone is not fun. So I found myself a nice set of steps to sit on and waited for the morning, bearing in mind it`s now 5am. My steps were right outside Maccies, at this point I haven`t eaten for a day, and I have no money to even eat a Maccies! The tramps had it better than me I reckon! at 6am I decided to try my card again, still nothing. So I wandered aimlessly around for a while seeing if any exchange places had opened... They hadn`t. I made it to some sort of square thing with a closed information counter, and took up lodge on a new set of steps. Away from forbidden food!I was there a while until a nice security guy came over to say hello. He spoke English, I`d already asked a few people about the location of the Singapore Airline`s offices to no avail. I needed to get there before midday to confirm flights for today. But no one had heard of Capital Square. But this guy had, ah ha, success. I had a new plan, it was apparently within walking distance, so I`d go there first, then by the time I`d finished I`d change my Thai money and hot tail it outta here to the airport! I strapped on the bag again and walked for a mile or so. Finally found the office, and the reason no one knew it. It was brand new and apparently preferred to call itself CapSquare in real life. Nice one! It was around 7am at this point, too early to be open, but you had to register anyway, so I thought I`d get that done and wait on the comfy chairs outside that they were obviously going to have now things were looking up. Hahaha I wish.I go up to the reception, and ask about opening times. "Closed til Monday" was the response! Closed!!! Closed!!!!! My God! So I skulked away thinking about which bench would be best to start my life as KL`s first western hobo when I saw an open Money Exchange/Newsagents!! They probably ripped me right off but I didn`t care. I had Malaysian Rings, get me to the airport... Quick! I had since learned the airport was 73km and 80 of my 148 rings away. But I had to get there before I turned into Tom Hanks in The Terminal! I didn`t count on getting Travis Bickle as a taxi driver, this dude was one wrong turn away from shaving his head and talking about wiping the scum from the streets! Luckily we made it there safely, and the lady from Singapore Airlines was bloody lovely and sooooo helpful. My flights were confirmed and I could even leave KL right away if I wanted and just wait longer at Singapore. So that`s what I did, got to Singapore around 12pm and had to wait until 12am for my flight!I whiled away the hours by sorting out my banking situation and playing on the free internet. When I finally arrived in Australia I`d been travelling for around 48 hours and hadn`t slept. I had to wait for Alex to get the keys to his place, he was flying out that day, and by the time I finally got to his flat I`d been going for around 52 hours. So did the only thing I could do, crashed out and SLEPT!!!
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