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6:40 – Arrive in KLIA

6:00 – Customs/Immigration. More haste, less speed, I spazz four attempts at the immigrations form before I get through…

6:10 – Money. I hand over 50 quid in yen, I get back… a wad of notes. Some number of somethings. Should be enough.

6:19 – Stash hand luggage – moving my life back home and there’s no way I’m dragging this much crap around with me. Charming, smartly suited man asks if I need assistance, guides me to left luggage, ’til I realise that no-one actually helps you in airports, clearly he must be a kidnapper or rapist or something more terrible, and I mumble an excuse and dash the other way to the official left luggage. They are unhelpful and grudging and in this make me feel gloriously secure.

6:28 – Express train to the city. Ooh, lush and verdant.

7:05 – Subway ride to the good stuff. Men the same,in suits, women in – saris? We do not fear change. We are comfortable with our sudden transformation into cultural know-nothings.

7:17 – Tourism! Old KL station, National Mosque, Sultan Abdul Samad Building, christ, they time you when you cross the street here, Jamek Mosque, no chance of getting in there, I’m violating all five stated dress code rules. Pretty though.

8:01 – Surprised to find that I am pregnant, and that they make it rewarding.

8:06 – I’ve made the run-down wrecked part of town, always the best place to eat. Unbelievably good curry, hot and fragrant fish, greasy lamb, the best dahl I ever ate – for gratis, soupy and cold and salty, it’s fantastic and I want more, a garlic naan the size of my head and they ask if one is enough. All of this costs about a pound fifty, of course. Feel vaguely guilty but nicely sated.

8:45 – Chinatown. Oh, disappointed. Just another South-East Asian tourist market, the same rows of fake bags and watches and perfumes, the same pissed off travelling couples not talking in the same restaurants. Yes, I’m a vile and ungrateful person to have seen enough of this stuff to become blase about it. Enough.

8:51 – Taxi.

8:58- Train.

9:58 – Bags gathered, money made sterling, checked in, nice to know you.