High upon the hilton

In the air again

Oh I’m a long way from home right now. Thousands and thousands of miles. Feels surprisingly good, but I can feel I’m already getting ahead of myself. Right now I’m sat typing into my iPad from a hotel room in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Let me talk about my experience getting here.

Godalming to Heathrow is tiresome

I learned something yesterday. Wait, I don’t mean yesterday do I. I mean Wednesday. It’s Friday for me right now and I’m confused by the timezone change. I left on Wednesday. Right. Yes. I learned something on Wednesday, and that’s to always take at least a half day off if I’m flying somewhere far away. Working a full (and hectic) day before sodding off to Heathrow for a 12+hr flight was far more stressful and tiring than I needed the day to be.

Left with plenty of time to get to the train, despite being laden with 3 bags and the larger suitcase that rarely sees the light of day. Two trains 13 minutes apart and I made it to the platform just in time to see the first one bugger off without me. Next train was on time, empty, and got me to Woking in time for only a 5 minute changeover to the coach. I can sense this “train to Woking, bus to Heathrow” intro will soon be an incredibly tiresome and repetitive subject about which to write, speak, read or listen so maybe I’ll skip it in the future. But for now we all have to suffer for my decision to keep it in this time. I’m too invested.

The coach had pinstriped seats, which made a change. It was cramped and the traffic was fucking miserable, being rush hour followed by the M25. Actually the M25 was fine, it was all the semi-rural Surrey roads which were rammed. Every time I do this journey I have a chat with local Mike to bitch about the lack of railway from this part of the world to the airport, and this time was no exception.

Documents, please

Got off at Terminal 5. I’d already checked in for the flight on Tuesday evening, but for some reason I’d been flagged as needing to visit a desk to have my documents checked. There aren’t really desks at T5 any more, it’s almost entirely self-service and roving staff. I did find a document check bit, but it was in the staff travel section and I ain’t staff. So I wandered around in circles before giving up and asking someone. I had been at the correct place after all.

Apparently my documents needed checking because my flight wasn’t a return, and Malaysia wanted proof that I was going to leave their country. Fair, I guess. That desk was also able to take my suitcase, which was handy.

Fast track security was pretty fast, despite the bloke in front of me trying his best to derail matters by, for example, putting a tray full of stuff back underneath where the empty trays come in, instead of pushing it forward to go through the X-Ray.

I had to scan my feet for some reason, and my left foot made the machine sound an alarm and display a big warning sign ⚠️ . The staff’s response was “eh, try again”, and on second try my left foot was deemed safe. Phew. My right foot had caused no such concern.

Tech journalism interlude!

I went to buy some new headphones, which seems to happen far more frequently than it should. But I instantly got distracted because, hang on, is that what I think it is?

It is! It’s an iPhone Duo! I have a … well, I don’t have a relationship with this device. But when it was announced I loved how it looked in the demo. Then I watched and read some reviews and thought, eh, maybe not. JerryRigEverything’s takedown was eye-opening, but there’s no telling how I’d feel until I got my hands on one. And here it was! All I had to do was pretend I was looking at other stuff for, I dunno, 5 minutes or so while someone else was seemingly recording an entire video review of it or something.

I only played with it for the shortest time. The last fella had left Netflix playing. I swiped that away.

Then I opened it. Mostly the thing that had captivated me was the huge wow factor of opening it and all that lovely animation etc. Well, when I opened it the inner screen was at a different orientation to the outer screen and I had to jiggle it to convince it to be right. There was no wow factor, except maybe wow, why has this not come up anywhere I’ve seen? Anyway, the iPhone Duo is awkward and heavy and stiff and I don’t like it. That’s £2k I don’t have to spend. Now, to the lounge for some fizzy wine.

Journalism over: get to the drinking and stuff

Was surprised and pleased how quiet the lounge was. Easy to get a seat in my almost favourite place, I had a couple of glasses of fizz and tried to capture the flashing light on the plane that was parking up directly ahead of me. Also, opening the camera app earlier and given me this “there’s Siri built-in!” spiel earlier, and I noticed it offered to tell me the nutritional content of my fizzy wine and pretzels.

I already knew my flight would be leaving from the C satellite terminal so decided to head to the lounge in the B satellite early. It’s normally nice and quiet and with better food. Remembered to buy some headphones en route, finding it embarrassingly difficult to discern which ones actually had a. 3.5mm jack.

Emerging at B, the escalator deposited me in front of a closed bar. This terminal was largely dead, though the lounge had some life. No fizzy wine though so I made do with a San Miguel and a plate of stuff.

Then some fizzy wine turned up, so I had some with a plate of other stuff - including this magnificent “curried butternut squash egg”.

I tried checking into my hotel on the Hilton app. I’d not been certain about it in case of delays etc, but I thought, fuck it why not. Going through the process I discovered I’d been upgraded, which was nice. But lots of travel stuff had been going on the past couple of days. I’d had to register for the MDAC, Malaysia’s digital arrivals card. Amex told me out of the blue that the flights after this one had changed, when in fact they haven’t. And my primary travel credit card (sort of) was briefly suspended because I’d made an apparently suspicious purchase. I had not.

My phone was nagging at me about the gate, so I left the lounge with far too much time to spare and wandered the walkway again, to C55.

Got there with few people around. Walked a full circuit of the C gates, with only two planes leaving - mine, and a far busier one to Johannesburg which was already boarding. Back at C55 they just announced pre-boarding for those with infants or who need special assistance. I went to the loo and by the time I was out they were boarding group 5. That was quick! I was in group 2 so shuffled round to the 1-3 bit and got straight through.

BA33 LHR-KUL

Bit of a queue in the airbridge, but soon enough I was safely ensconced in my seat/bed for the next 12+ hours, seat 13A on this British Airways Boeing 787 flight BA33 to Kuala Lumpur. I took some time to familiarise myself with my surroundings and make sure all personal items were safely stowed for takeoff, etc etc. Mostly I listened to the passenger in 13B repeatedly ask for slippers, while scribbling demands for a pre-departure drink in my notepad. Oh, and wondering why I’d seemingly been given a child’s amenity kit.

We pushed back early, which meant no more internet. In amongst the flurry of travel related stuff that had happened I’d also been told by BA that there was no WiFi on this flight. Is for the best that I sometimes be forced offline? Let’s wait and see. Anyway, goodnight to Helen and airplane mode on.

I hadn’t downloaded anything to my iPad so all entertainment had to be supplied by the inflight entertainment system, and mine had this curious thing whereby the sound was fine except all dialogue was kinda muted or muffled unless I jigged about with the headphones. Mildly annoying. I’d started off watching “In The Grey”, which was a hectic crime and corruption caper that was a bit too caper-y, if you ask me. But I was delighted to see Roddy Ho from Slow Horses in it!

Anyway. Time to look at the menu (and to try out this “photo stack” thing I’ve had Claude implement since I got back from Stockholm).

13B raised the divider between us before I got a chance to (i.e. they beat me by seconds). I wanted to look out of the window, but turns out I was directly above the wing and the view was a bit shit.

In the air, more champagne arrived and orders were taken. I went for :

• duck to start
• mezzaluna main
• still water and champagne to accompany

I also opted not to be woken up for breakfast on the off chance that I was asleep when service started. That seemed unlikely, not least because I thought my seat was broken and didn’t recline. Turned out that all the individual controls didn’t work, but the presets were OK. Fine.

Food arrived. The duck thing was pretty nice. I didn’t have mezzaluna. Don’t know why, and I didn’t query it, but instead of give me what I asked for they gave me something I would never order in a million years: the lamb. As it turns out, it was fucking delicious. 👌

Was that Cynthia Rothrock I saw? I definitely thought it was her, but surely she wasn’t old enough. I mean I guess I could go look it up if I cared that much. Anyway Statham’s script was spectacular.

When clearing the cheese away, the cabin crew member asked if I wanted a nightcap. Oh fuck it why not, I’ll have a glass of that scotch with the long name. No, no mixer.

Almost as soon as this was finished and cleared away, I fell asleep. I don’t remember the end of the Statham film at all, and yet I don’t feel like I lost out on anything.

Woke up after a short while, went to the loo, then came back and made the seat into a bed proper. Wrapped myself in a blanket and nodded off for several hours, which wasn’t a surprise having described myself as “disastrously tired” to Helen prior to takeoff.

Didn’t fancy any more movies, thought I’d try some TV I’d not seen before. Opted for Severance (from Apple TV I think?). Watched the first two episodes of season one and … I dunno. Feels so far like they have a moderately interesting premise but aren’t doing much with it. Maybe I should try a whole season at least, but I didn’t feel like persevering onboard.

Just as I was thinking “hey, I’ve not eaten for probably 8hrs by now - I should take my GLP-1 tablet”, breakfast arrived. Oh well never mind. I thought I’d opted out but no, I’d only opted out of being woken had I been sleeping. In the end I only had the starter (fruit, muesli, small croissant) and declined to have any hot main.

My TV told me Malaysia is in the same time zone as the UK, which I chose not to believe. Outside was getting a tiny bit more interesting. Only a tiny bit.

We landed just after 6.30pm, a bit late, and the announcement from the crew was properly garbled. Well maybe not garbled, but definitely a bit messed up. Like “for those of you returning home, we hope you have a pleasant onward journey” or something.

In the end I reckon it was good for me to be offline for that flight. But now I wanted to get on the WiFi, activate my eSIM and get to my hotel.

The seamlessness of KLIA

KLIA is weird. I mean not that weird, but I was fucking frazzled and memories of previous arrivals were not forthcoming. It started off feeling like we were being shepherded through a dedicated arrivals corridor only to be dumped into the terminal mixing with all departing passengers and, wait, where’s arrivals? I’m too tired for this.

Figured out I needed to get a monorail thing to another part of the terminal. There was a sign saying “first and business class passengers” where the guy at the desk was telling all the business class folk to just get the regular transit. So I got the regular transit. The main terminal was insanely busy, didn’t help that a lot of tour groups were present.

I’d filled out my MDAC in advance at least, so went straight to the eGates queues. These gates work similar to the ones in Heathrow and elsewhere, except uniquely (in my limited experience) the KL ones were refusing most people’s passports and a member of staff would bark “step out! try again!” and it would work on second try. That’s what happened to multiple people around me, and indeed me myself and I. Two was the magic number.

“Find My” on my phone reassuringly told me my suitcase had last been seen in Kuala Lumpur airport 15 minutes ago. I went to the carousel, then the loo which was miles away, then back to the carousel. Still no bag. Stared at my phone and the AirTag was on the move and, oh, it’s right in front of me now!

My bed was covered in stuff! An elaborate “welcome to Hilton KL” in, what, rose petals and ferns? I mean it’s nice and all but now I have to clean up all this stuff. Which I can’t be arsed to do right now because I’m too busy going holy shit at the craziness of the room I’ve been given.

It’s huge. There’s a little area with a posh (I assume) coffee machine and a mini bar. There’s a big fuck off wardrobe. There’s what I’m terming the “blogging desk”, since that’s how I’m using it right now as I type.

There’s a very, very large window but I can’t work out how to roll the net curtain thing up which makes awkwardly taking a photo the only way I can know what my view is.

There’s also a massive bathroom with separate bath and shower and a toilet with a phone in it. Man, I love me a toilet with a phone in it. Why do I need a phone in the toilet? Some kind of Lethal Weapon situation?

My phone was almost dead and the USB sockets in the wall weren’t playing ball. Plugged it in to a real plug and, oh shit, it’s apparently international stout day. I wasn’t going to have a beer, but now I obviously have to. But first, a shower.

Shower pressure check: great! Really impressively tough. Woke me up for a bit as my phone struggled its way back up to 20% battery. It was already gone 9pm and there was no way I was going to venture beyond the hotel for a beer, so I popped downstairs to the Aviary Bar and got myself a Guinness.

Anyway my phone had dropped back down to about 4% battery and so had I. Wandered back up to my room with just enough juice to use Hilton’s “digital key”. The app knows when I’m in the lift or near my room and will unlock stuff for me without me needing the physical card. Almost feels a bit magic.

Couldn’t figure out how to turn off 100% of the lights in my room, but I got most of the way there. I suspect I’d have been able to sleep with all the lights on and some live music literally in my room, tbh. Night!