No Visa Malaysia
- By Jane Henninger
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- 18 Jul, 2023
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0kay, but the Immigration wait time is still over 3 hours!
We flew through the night and part of the next day to arrive in Kuala Lumpur, Malayasia, at 3:50PM.
Going through passport check was easy; Malaysia does not require an entry visa for Americans. However, the simultaneous arrival of many international flights meant the immigration intake line was over 3 hours long even with over a dozen open counters. We had prearranged and prepaid for transfer from the airport to our hotel. This should have been a relief to prevent waiting for a taxi or haggling with the taxi driver. Our driver was only guaranteed to wait 30 minutes beyond our scheduled arrival, therefore, a new concern for losing the assigned driver was a possibility. Thankfully, as we cleared immigration, baggage pickup, and customs, we were greeted with the welcome sight of our names still on display by the driver coordinator.
We arrived at our hotel, the AC Hotel by Marriott. which is conveniently located among restaurants, a local laundry/laundromat service, and near a major bus/metro-rail junction. When checking in I asked if our rate included breakfast, was told it did not, but the clerk graciously added the complimentary breakfast for us. Again, excellent service above that expected at a 4-star property.
After checking into our room, we went to explore our dinner options. We decided to wait to visit the large seafood restaurant across the street. something smaller. We found a local Thai place a few doors down and ordered a light portion of the usual, local chicken and rice offering. We added a blended juice drink, which combined both dragon and passion fruits for an interesting and delicious flavor.
After dinner, we had no desire for sightseeing that evening. We had been in the air over 24 hours and had flown more than halfway around the world in about 3 days. Our king-sized bed in our well air conditioned room was calling us.
A composite of several encounters in our first 6 months of this yearlong adventure.
Therefore, we are changing out postings to almost exclusively show photographic images with short captions while seeking to post more days to make up for our almost 2 month backlog.
For those wishing to view narratives, please, friend and/or follow Jane on Facebook as https://www.facebook.com/jane.henninger
I had bought a birthday card for him that I actually knew where it was and had it for the trip, but it was about camping and it was supposed to be when were in New Zealand or Australia. I bought it a good year before the trip. At least I had a card for him.
Today we are taking a Thai cooking class at a farm where they grow some of the produce. We are going to a market before to learn what the local products are. Don loves taking pictures at markets so this will be a good start to his day.
After our now standard noodle breakfast, we engaged a local taxi driver to take us outside the ancient city walls with their protective moat to both Wat Umong, the Tunnel Temple, and Wat Sri Suphan, the Silver Temple. After breakfast there were two other Wats I wanted to see. One was the silver wat and the other was outside the old city in caves on the outskirts of Chiang Mai. We got a cab to take us to the cave one and had him wait so he could take us to the one in town.
We cleaned up after playing with the elephants in the river and went to check out several local Buddhist Temples of interest.
On the way back to the hotel yesterday, July 20th, we had discovered Wat Inthakhin Sadue Muang almost in the middle of the street, but Don had been too tired to appreciate it and he did not take any pictures, then.
