Malaysia & Singapore: Day One

Hello, everyone!

A couple weeks ago I went on a trip with my new Portuguese friends, Amanda, Maria, and Margarida, to Malaysia and Singapore. Since we had Friday, May 21 off from school for the Buddha’s Birthday holiday, we decided to extend our three-day weekend into a 10-day trip.

Yes, we missed the last week of school, but I made arrangements with all my teachers and finished all my work before leaving, so no judgments! I never miss classes for vacations!

Anyway, Friday we spent the entire day traveling. Generally I wouldn’t write an entire blog entry about my time in the airports, but this day is quite noteworthy in itself, as you’ll find out later. ; )

We woke up, packed, and took taxis to the Macau International Airport. However, when we arrived and checked in, we found out that our flight to Singapore was delayed for two hours! It concerned us a bit, since we had a connecting flight from there to Kuala Lumpur, the capital of Malaysia. However, there was nothing we could do at that point, so we took a taxi to Cuppa Coffee, our favorite coffee shop in all of Macau. We hung out there for a little bit and had a small lunch before heading back to the airport.

When we got into the taxi to go back to the airport, I showed him my taxi translation card to indicate that we wanted to go to the airport. We said “airport” out loud, and when I showed him the card, he got offended.

“I know, I know! I know ‘airport.’ When you say ‘airport,’ I know what you are saying, because I speak English!”

It was surprising, because most taxi drivers in Macau don’t speak much English. Sometimes you can say “airport,” and they understand that word, but generally that’s about it. Forgive me if I assume that you don’t speak English when I’m in a Cantonese-speaking country!

Anyway, we got to the airport and went through security and Immigrations. Because Margarida had contact solution that was over 100 ml, they had to discard it. She needs special solution for her allergies, so she was really bummed when they took it. She asked them to save it for her to pick it up when she returned, but they told her no.


The flight to Singapore was about three and a half hours. As it got closer and closer to the departure time to our connecting flight, we got more and more nervous. We asked the flight attendants if they could do anything for us, but all they were able to do was move us to empty seats toward the front so we could get off first.

However, that planned didn’t work out too well, since people stood up and blocked our way as soon as the plane landed. We hurried off as fast as we could, and as soon as we stepped down onto the runway we took off running into the airport toward Immigrations.

The reason we had to enter Singapore, claim my luggage, check-in, and legally exit Singapore in Immigrations was because Tiger Airways does not have connecting flights. Instead, you have to purchase two or more separate flights to reach your destination. This really hindered us when it came to catching our next flight, since our time was only twenty minutes before departure!

The line to enter Singapore at Immigrations didn’t take us too long, and my luggage had already come out when we were through. We ran outside to get to the Arrivals door, and begged the employees at the check-in counter to give us our boarding passes. Originally, they told us we would have to book a new flight to Kuala Lumpur, but we told them it was the airlines fault that we were late. They made a couple of quick calls and decided to finally check us in and give us our boarding passes.

Although Amanda, Maria, and Margarida had packed lightly enough that they could fit it in their carry-ons, I had a large suitcase with me that needed to be checked. They told me that there was no time to check it and that I would have to run with it to the airplane, which was waiting for us!

We ran through Immigrations, and luckily there was no line to get our Passports stamped. We ran through Security, and we were about to run to our plane with our airport employee escort when the man at Security stopped us.

“Excuse me, ma’am,” he said to me. “I need you to open your luggage.”

I tried to explain that there was no time, but he refused. I understood that I needed to comply with airline policies, especially since they weren’t used to full-sized luggage at this checkpoint.

I started getting very angry, since he demanded to take an individual look at ALL of my toiletries, putting them back if they were “okay” and taking them if they were not. I asked if he could save them for me on my way back to Singapore in eight days, but he said no, unless I paid. I asked how much, and he told me $8 SGD. I said that was fine and reached for my wallet to pay. He told me that I couldn’t do that here; I had to do it at the beginning and do it prior to the Immigration check point.

He asked to look at all my liquids, and began to take them away. He took both bottles of my (very expensive) Bed Head brand shampoo and conditioner, my special lotion for my Eczema skin condition, my Clinique make-up remover from home, my Colgate toothpaste (also brought from home), and a couple of other things I don’t remember in the rush of taking them out of my suitcase.

I that point I lost it, since my toiletries were very expensive. The shampoo and conditioner cost over $30 each, and everything else was around $15. I started slamming down everything on the counter, and things started falling onto the floor in my rush.

“Ma’am? Ma’am, you need to calm down,” the man told me.

“No, I don’t!” I shouted at him. “It’s not my fault that my flight was late and you guys made me bring my luggage with me! I’m trying to get to my flight, and you’re just preventing me from doing that!”

He didn’t respond.

I slammed my suitcase shut after I’d removed everything and took off running for our flight. Our escort ran with us and directed us to our gate, where employees were waiting to take our boarding passes. An employee took my luggage and ran toward the cargo area, which made me realize that there was no point in surrendering my luggage! And why didn’t our escort say anything to the security man?

We made it to our flight, although we sat down all sweaty and out of breath. At that point it was after 9:00 at night, and we were completely exhausted from all the stress of rushing around. I was fuming the entire flight (although it was only an hour) from my encounter with security.

When we finally got to Kuala Lumpur, we went through Immigrations and collected my baggage from the luggage claim. We tried to withdraw Malaysian currency (Ringgits) from the airport ATM, but it wouldn’t give us any money. Maria had Hong Kong Dollars that she changed at the airport currency exchange counter, so she had to pay for our taxi into the city to our hostel.

It took an hour to drive into the city from the airport, and when we finally got to Chinatown, where our hostel was, our driver got lost. We drove around for twenty minutes trying to find it, but the taxi driver had to keep stopping to ask for directions.

We finally found our hostel, Wheelers Guest House. The area was extremely dirty and “sketchy,” but our room was completely unbearable. The public bathroom was co-ed, with tiny stalls with dirt and God-knows-what-else on the floor in wet puddles. Inside our room, we expected to see cockroaches at any minute.

We left the hostel to see if we could find some dinner and an ATM, but at this point it was around midnight. The local 7-Elevens were open, but all we got was a small, hot dog-like sandwich.

The ATMs all over would not give us any money, and then we found out from the 7-Eleven employee that they closed down at night and would be open in the morning. Maria had to pay for our dinner and the hostel fee apart from the taxi, and I felt extremely nervous walking around a foreign city without any money.

Walking around KL’s Chinatown at night was a nightmare. The streets smelled awful, and we even saw cockroaches and HUGE rats running around in the streets. I saw a small, thin cat chase after a mouse, but if there was a fight between the cat and the rat, I’m not so sure the cat would win unscathed…

We decided to skip the nasty shower and just go straight to bed. I was exhausted, but my disgust with our hostel made it a little difficult to fall asleep.

We vowed to wake up early the next morning and find a new place to stay for the duration of our time in Kuala Lumpur.

Coming up next, “Malaysia & Singapore: Day Two.”

Love,
Kati