Napping in Malaysia

Just woke up from a lovely nap on a bench in the Kuala Lumpur International Airport. We left Brisbane yesterday (the 3rd) at 11pm and had a 7.5 hour flight to Kuala Lumpur, arriving here at 5am local time. About 4 of the 7.5 hour flight was super turbulent so I didn't sleep much on the plane. Plus there were too many good movies to watch in so little time. I chose Hannah Montana the Movie...err, I mean my TV was broken and that's the only thing I could watch. Right....after that I watched a documentary on the part of India we are going to, the Golden Triangle. Very informative and interesting. Got me even more excited. When that was over and I'd given up on trying to sleep on the roller coaster known as our flight, I started to watch 17 Again. Which brings my movie choice maturity level to around 15 years old.

We flew Malaysia Airlines which was pretty nice. There wasn't anyone sitting next to me and Sarah was on the aisle. They fed us dinner - we both chose lamb with vegetables - and breakfast. The rest of the flight they walked around offering juice, water, beer, wine. I stuck to orange juice and water, still trying to shake that sore throat. The flight attendants wore cute traditional Malaysian outfits made of teal embroidered silk. Super adorable, I should have gotten a picture.

The India documentary focused on Delhi, Agra and Jaipur, 3 cities which we are going to visit. They were filming a market in Delhi and panned out to the street showing all the different modes of transportation. They included rickshaw, taxi, motorbike, ox pulled cart, and my favorite...elephant. Yeah, some guy was cruising into the markets on an elephant. Crazy! I also learned that the Taj Mahal was a gift from an emporer to the love of his life, who gave him 14 children in 20 years. She died shortly after having all those kids and he had it built in her honor as her "Heaven on earth". The granite it is made out of is one of the best in the world, and parts of it that look painted are actually gemstones such as onyx laid in the granite. Decendents of the original builders still made gemstone inlaid granite pieces and I already have my eye on a vase I saw in the video. Beautiful!

Well 7 more hours to spend in the airport. We've already browsed through the Hermes and Coach stores. No, didn't buy anything. Sarah had some Malaysian soup as a snack. I'm having fun people watching. So many different cultures walking through this place. I laughed earlier when I heard a final boarding call for Uzbekistan because I'm used to hearing "Final boarding call for flight 140 to Dallas" or something similar. Not here! They are flying to countries I couldn't even pinpoint on a map! Our flight tonight is only about 4 hours, we arrive in Delhi at 9pm. Someone from our hotel should be there with our names on a sign to pick us up...hopefully.

I'll update when I can in India!

Namaste (goodbye in Hindi - hello as well),
Katy