Today was the much awaited day on which I’m meant to pick up my Uzbek visa in Ampang. I woke up to AirAsia’s big sale though and scrolling through the destinations it seemed that I had either been there (sometimes more than once) or it didn’t appeal. Then I thought of Makepung in Bali, a place I’ve been transiting through lately rather than visiting.
I checked some dates about a month after my planned completion of my Galapagos trip in 2018, and it seemed to work. So I snapped up SIN-KCH-xKUL-DPS-SIN for peanuts. I will fly AKL-SIN-AKL on a free ticket which would be expiring.
After some muesli and milk I headed out about 0840 on the monorail and LRT to arrive at the embassy around 0940 which was 10 minutes after its opening. Not bad! When I rang a few days ago to check on my visa approval, the gentleman told me to come to the embassy then go to the Maybank down the road to pay (rather than the original advice by another man to pay at Maybank before calling at the embassy).
Arrgh! I was given confirmation that all was OK and I had to go to Maybank to make the payment into the embassy’s bank account … as per the original advice! So, I took the bus to Menara Perkeso where the bank was located.
The bank staff were nice and helpful and all very chatty being interested with my trip. I had to pay USD65 which I had with me but they told me it would better for me to get money from the ATM and let them do the conversion. If I gave them USD, they would have to convert it into MYR and then back to USD.
Once done, I took the bus back to the embassy. I guess I wasted about 20-30 mins by calling into the embassy before going to the bank. Ah well …
I took the now familiar LRT and monorail route back to the hotel. I had paid for an extra night to use as confirmed late check-out (otherwise late checkouts are only notified at midday and available till 1800 for half rate). I got back just before midday and it would have been stressful if I hadn’t done that.
After lunch, it was a relaxing afternoon with a massage by a blind Sabahan near the hotel. We had a very nice chat about Sabah and its many ethnicities. I learnt that Bajaus with their horsemen are a different Bajau who are normally seafarers. The former are found on the west coast of Sabah, eg. Kota Belud.
Around 1930 I checked-out and walked to KL Sentral to take the bus to KLIA2. I had been notified of my Optiontown 3-seats so I could sleep horizontally. I got to the check-in counter exactly 3h prior to departure. My three seat numbers were written onto my boarding pass against my original seat further back, whereas last time my boarding pass reflected one of the three seats. Even though I had bid only for AKL-OOL for horizontal mode, the check-in staff told me I could have it for OOL-AKL as well. Let’s see how that goes.