The flight from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur went without problems. I had the middle seat in a row of 5 which meant going to the toilet was difficult. After several films and keeping my legs cross my next door neighbour woke up and it was possible to finally race to the toilet. What a relief.

In KL the express train brought me into town and Prema (our Malaysian friend) picked me up from the train station. She took me via a restaurant for lunch to their house and with a shower I could wash off the flight and the sweat from the humid tropical weather. I slowly became human again. In the evening Prema and Gopal had invited our other Malaysian friends Albert and Angela, which we also knew from Warri (Nigeria). It was a delicious potluck Indian/Chinese meal which was rounded off with a partial viewing of the Amsterdam-Vladivostok slideshow.

The next day I left the house late and took the mono rail to the business centre to finally visit the PETRONAS Twin tower viewing gallery on the 89th floor. Previous attempts had failed due to the long queues. At 18:00 I met Jan Brakel (a colleague from my Oman period) and we walked to their luxury penthouse with swimming pool. Karin had prepared some snacks which we washed down with Chinese “wine” (Ginger) while looking at the majestic Petronas tower across the streets. In the evening we all wandered down to the street restaurants, so typical in Malaysia, and had a meal. I just managed to catch the last train back and Gopal picked me up from the station.

The onwards flight to New Zealand was only at 22:00 so after a relaxing day Prema dropped me off at the train station and after coffee with Gopal it was back to the airport. While tying to find the check in counter I bumped into Jamaliah who had just arrived from Brunei. Together we checked in, had a meal and boarded the plane (9 hours flight).