December 30 2008
We woke up at 530. Jonny hopped straight in the shower as I whined and winged; a typical morning for us both. Once awake, I wanted to focus on positive things. I wanted to get it in my head that it was possible to see our friends in Thailand tonight if we were efficient, positive and hard working. Sadly, some things are just left out of our control...
Walking toward the bus stop in KL I told Jonny about “The Secret”. I saw it on Oprah a while back, and it really baffled me. He seemed to think it was a bunch of hooplah because he just kept walking briskly, as he does. I just kept imagining myself on the beach in Thailand, surprising our friends at the new year’s countdown.
We arrived in Klang at about 815 am. We waited for the bus to westports, but apparently no one is interested in going there... we waited for about 30 minutes until Jonny went to ask how much a cab cost. I waited for him to get back, and I saw him hop out a cab. I guess it was cheap to take a cab (40 RM). We get to westports and I’m feeling a little woozy. I sit back and read some F. Scott as Jonny goes to the customer service counter. It turns out the wombat is at North port. AHHHHHHHHHHHHH. Jonny organizes for another cab to come and drive us to North port. He wants 60 RM, we don’t have a choice. By then, it is 10 am (my watched died in the night, I’m wondering if it’s cheaper to just buy a new one, instead of changing the battery).
We get to North port. I sit in the festive office. I say festive because they really got into the holiday spirit and turned the thermostat to minus 20C. Seriously. It feels like they’re trying to make it snow in here. I fear I will catch pneumonia in here. Seriously.
Jonny goes and makes a friend at the counter as I curl up in a little ball on a couch. It turns out we need to get a permit for our car at the ministry of transportation. Jonny goes with Mike to customs and I stay behind to “watch the bags”. I feel like crap. I try and position myself on the couch so that it looks like I’m reading to the people at the desk, and so it doesn’t look like I’m snoozing at their workplace. Success. A funny man walks in who makes everyone laugh and wakes me up.
Jonny comes back with the carnet all signed and ready to go. We need to get a sheet stamped by Syina back at the Modern Shipping office that releases the car to us, and we need to get the permit from the ministry. Jonathan says that he will go take care of everything. I will rest on the icicle couch. I go eat lunch.
Jonny said that once everything is done, the customer service office can call the container people and have our car taken out. It would take a total of about 2 hours do unload the cargo.
Now it is 330 pm, I am still waiting for Jonnyboy. If he doesn’t get back soon, we will have to go back to KL without the car, because there won’t be enough time to unload the container. I’m afraid that if he doesn’t get back soon, we will have to wait until friday the 2nd to get the Wombat.
I tried to think positive, but it looks like this one’s out of our hands (again). Maybe for “the secret” to work, you need to imagine those things months in advance. Jonny and I don’t know what we’re doing tomorrow, so we can’t send positive energies into the universe in advance....damn....maybe I should just think ahead and focus my positive energy on a pony...hmmmm
MC
JD writes- In the end, it turns out we were missing a document form the Road and transportation department, and we could only get this if we could prove that we were insured. I found this out at around 4 o’clock, and decided that the wombat was not going to be freed today. I headed back to the port to find a exhausted MC and a couple of eager port officers. They helped me sort out all the documents that I needed so that I could come back on Friday the 2nd and get the car out as quickly as possible. It was kinda neat, as they took me behind the scenes and were extremely friendly. Most of the people I saw today were a bit overwhelmed and lost when i tried to explain my story, but the guys at Northport customer service and documentation office were right on the ball, and they went out of their way to help us. Rasa, from customer services even offered us a ride back to Port Klang, so we could catch a bus back to KL.
As I was taking a shower at a new hostel, MC befriended some Russian people, one of whom hardly spoke English, and they invited us to go clubbing with them. We all headed out to an area with a bunch of clubs, where MC and I stopped to grabbed a bite, while the others went inside a club. Unfortunately, we never saw them again, and about 30 minutes before midnight, MC and I went to a little bar near the Petronas towers. At midnight everybody cheered and some fireworks went off, but we couldn’t see them very well as they were partly hidden by the skyscrapers. It was still fun though, and after we walked around the town until we caught the Monorail back to the hotel and went to bed.
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