Prik Ki Nu

We boarded the minivan at Zulu Nyala Sunday morning at 9AM. After a 90 minute road trip, several flights, and several layovers, we FINALLY arrived in Malaysia at 9PM on Monday night having crossed 5 time zones! Hazzards encountered included a maniacal bus system in the Johannesburg airport. You’ve probably read about frequent bus disasters in Mexico and such, but I’m surprised you don’t see press articles about near death experiences on busses in the JNB airport :-).

Anyway, one of the cool things about flying Emirates is that you get a free lift from the airport to your hotel before/after each leg of your UE trip. Exhausted from so many hours of travel Brett, Nigel, Theresa, and I deplaned, went through customs, and began looking for drivers holding signs with our names. This time there were no drivers and the Emirates office was closed. Brett was able to locate an Emirates employee and determined that there was no car waiting for us (Note for next time… check if the limo service is offered in your destination).

Concurrently, an entourage of many men had formed around us and were asking us where we were going. It was not unlike our experience of being accosted in the gold souk in old town Dubai (”Lady… I got watches… wanna by a nice Rolex? I give you good price”. “Gentleman, perfume for the lady? I give you good price” )… Amongst the foreign chatter of our personal paparazzi it was easy to make out the constant mention of “The Americans” (ie: the targets, the suckers, the idiots waiting to be fleeced).

Nigel, anxious to get to the hotel, began speaking with one of them and the next thing we knew, we were whisked away to a kiosk for the “agency” (one of perhaps 20). The gentleman (thieving maggot) asked for Nigel’s hotel information and informed him that the “Mandarin Oriental” had no limo service and they were the agent for the hotel. At this point T and I exchanged glances whispering, almost in unison, “yeah…. this hotel and every other one”.

He asked for Nigel’s reservation paperwork, picked up the telephone, and all-too-quickly, began conversing with the hotel receptionist on the other end. He informed Nigel that our reservation had been cancelled (despite Nigel having received an email confirmation the previous day). He then asked for our room rate, at which point Theresa and I got really worried and gave Brett “the look”. I sarcastically said “yeah.. and I’m sure they can arrange a room for us at some cockroach infested hotel for the same price”. We had to be total idiots not to know that something was going down… namely us. Nige, being the world traveler that he is, was looking a tad confused, but determined to take charge and get us all to the hotel safely.

Brett grabbed Nigel, and we all hightailed it away from the desk with the con artists in pursuit. We hustled out the front door where there were many minivan-type taxis lined up. At this point, one of the sharks we had been speaking with grabbed Brett and informed him that it was illegal to go with one of those drivers without a “ticket”; which, I can only guess, we had to purchase from the shysters. Nigel pushed forward, ignoring the man, and asked the driver how much to go to our hotel. The driver informed us it would be 150 Ringgits (just over $40 USD). That was significantly less than the 250 Ringgits we had been quoted by “our hotel’s limo service”.). We loaded our carry-on bags and abandoned the potential crime scene.

And the morals of the story are:

• If you think you have a ride, confirm it from the airport if possible.
• If you have a bunch of people vying for your attention, they surer than sh&^ are vying for your wonga ($$$)
• Never get off an airplane in a foreign country w/o knowing exactly how you are getting to your hotel AND having a backup plan.

Lynn

by Lynn

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 31st, 2006 at 12:03 am and is filed under World Trip. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.