So anyway, I have REI hiking seat-pad which is a lifesaver on long flights. But the seats were so bad on these two Delta flights that even with the REI pad I was squirming ten hours into a 14-hour flight. Ugh.
But in the end I managed to arrive, after reading a book and watching four movies.
When traveling internationally I usually make cash withdrawals from my checking card using a local ATM to get local currency. Airports have lots of ATMs. However, one of the things I advise travelers to foreign countries is to carry about $200 in US cash as "Plan B". This should be enough to get you from the airport to a night in a hotel in nearly any circumstance. There are places credit, debit and bank cards don't work. One such place was Indonesia - when I was there a year ago I discovered that American Express was not accepted in the country except at hotels, and then reluctantly. My credit card didn't work, and neither of my debit or bank cards worked in the local ATM's ... all I had to get from the airport to the hotel was the cold hard cash in my pocket which I exchanged to rupiah. Eventually, at a local bank, I found a row of ATM's and tried each one, until the 4th one I tried actually was able to process my card.
But for some reason this escaped my brain when I left home on this trip. I was actually thinking "Good, I don't have any US cash that I need to haul around". Doi. While I was sitting in that hard crappy seat I realized ... crap .. I have no cash with me. And then I recalled a conversation I had with a co-worker about getting to the hotel and specifically asked whether I can pay for the cab using a credit card and his answer was "no, cash only." I had to rely on whatever I could find at the airport. Now I was started to get a little nervous. So when I landed I made a bee-line for an ATM ... and it had a sign that it was out of service. Crap ... well, there are usually multiple ATM's in airports, the Kuala Lumpur terminal proved to be no exception. But the other ATM's were out of service too! At this point I was starting to think about calling the hotel to send a cab the 40km to the airport to come and pick me up. But I wasn't ready to throw in the towel yet. My Nerv-O-Meter was escalating!
I sought out the money exchangers and asked if I could purchase local currency on any of my credit cards. Nope ... they said that between 8pm and 1am (it was 10pm) all the ATM and bank transactions were suspended in that airport terminal. Son-of-a-bitch. Thus I went to stand in line at the immigrations counter and while there I pull up my Sprint phone to call the hotel to send a cab, and sure enough there was no CDMA signal. Ok, no surprise there - Sprint sucks for international travel, which is why I carry a second GSM-based quad-band phone with a pre-paid SIM card. I fired that up, and .... ohuh .... it was asking for a PIN code to unlock the SIM card, which, after two attempts, I resigned myself to not knowing the code. Double-crap! No money, no way to make phone calls, 40km from the hotel on a Sunday night. From the immigration line (which I stood in for 45 minutes!!!!!) I could see that there was a cell-phone store on the other side, I'm thinking, maybe I can use a credit card to overpay for a prepaid SIM card with which I can use. Ok. So I had a plan ... that helps.
After getting through immigration I head towards that cell phone store thinking "this HAS TO WORK!!!" and see another (Closed) money exchanger with an ATM and think, what the hell, I'll try it, and ... sweet mother of mercy I got cash! Yaaaaaaayyyyyy!!!!! Now it was just an issue of getting a taxi to the hotel, which involved going to the taxi desk, telling them where I wanted to go, pre-paying for a cab, and .... wait ... what's that? An AmEx symbol on the kiosk? "Do you take American Express?" "yes we do!" .... hahahahahaahahahah! All that worry for NOTHING! I paid for the cab with credit! (but I will still carry $200 in cash the next time).
For you military folks out there, be aware that USAA bank cards do NOT work in most international ATM's.
In the end, I arrive at the brand new Doubletree about 00:30 and check into the executive suite.
Check out that room - it has a shower with a glass wall so that if you're in the room you can see whomever is showering! The shower is huge too .. you could get a bunch of poeple in there. There is a blind that can be lowered if privacy is your thing, too, as the toilet is also visible from the main living area.
For the hallway outside my room I can see the twin Petronas Towers. Unfortunately they are closed to tourists until December or so.
And this was the view out of my window the next morning, from the 12th floor. Those are monorail lines.
Unfortunately the AC in the room did not work, so the next day I had to switch rooms, and they had no more executive suites so I had to get a "normal" room on the 22nd floor, which was still pretty damn nice. it is amazing what $75/night will get here in Asia.
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