Sunday, June 2, 2013. KUALA LUMPUR (Port Kelang), Malaysia

I forgot to mention that back on Thursday night, JMB and I went to see an entertainer named Maggie Scott, an Aussie, who is one if the most unusual performers I've ever seen. She has an amazing voice but sings quirky, off-beat selections and when we saw her earlier in the cruise she peppered her presentation with racy X rated stories and comments. Her show on Thursday was totally G rated and tame by comparison but filled with gorgeous renditions of well known showstoppers. And she managed to get people from the audience onto the stage with her, one of which was...me. Yikes. What a disaster...my fifteen seconds of fame! My comment to one of the real dancers who saw the show..."That's why I am not a professional dancer, but give me a mother in labor and I can do whatever it takes!"

And, I also wanted to note that the 30th of May marked about the halfway point in my total journey. Every day just flies by and so much happens in one day that the days are merging and becoming very hard to sort out if I don't write every day...Jeff has started blogging again, so, hopefully, he will fill in the blanks that my blog has. You can follow him on www.downunderjmichael.blogspot.com and he has also posted many photos of our journey.

When we have three ports and three excursions in three days I would need to take notes to keep it all in order and I'm not going to do that! So, I'm just doing the best I can. And I'm trying to give a sense of the things I bump into during an average day...if there is such a thing on this trip...that lead my mind to ponder.

So, Kuala Lumpur...ahh, yes. I had a morning tour due to leave around 8 am, however a stunning downpour slowed everything and I know we left later than nine. Our tour was to take us to the Kuala Lumpur Tower, the National Museum and the Karyaneka Handicraft Center. I was able to take this tour because "Mrs Green" couldn't and gave up her ticket. Jeff, meanwhile kept to our original schedule and took the "Kuala Lumpur On Your Own" tour...basically a drop off.

Did I mention that the temperature was between 95 and 100 with humidity in the 80% range?

Now, the city of KL is an hour and twenty minutes away from Port Kelang, where our ship was docked. We made many stops during that drive: the massive Blue Mosque, the beautiful British Colonial Railway Station, Merdeka Square, and an enormous war memorial. We had a lovely lunch at 1:00 and proceeded to the Tower. Arriving at the KL Tower shortly after 2:00 we were reminded that it was a holiday, the 86 year old King's observed Birthday, and all schools were closed and many businesses as well. Translated it meant that we should expect long queues and crowds. Hah! A gross understatement.

Mrs Green was the lucky one in this case. We waited and waited and endured more waiting in an overcrowded narrow space with no AC and a sadly overworked fan. Our Group 6 became separated but managed to arrive at the top observation floor after about 45 minutes, leaving us less than 10 minutes to navigate the viewing space AND to return to the bus. I took photos as quickly as I could...but noticed that the queue heading down was growing by the minute and this area was badly overcrowded too. There were no crowd controls in place at all. The elevators, 4 of them, were in the middle of this limited area and to add to the confusion, again, no signs of control people or officials helping guide the queue. Add screaming babies, large families, at least four large tour groups and, well, you get the idea. Misery.

In the floor above was a revolving restaurant and one elevator was designated to take and retrieve from that floor. Of the other three, two became inoperable leaving one to shuttle people down, a maximum of 17 at a time! I got in the queue and was toward the center of the mass. With the slightest indication of forward movement the large men on either side of me and those behind me started to push forward. With the heat, crowd, and small area of course I was more worried about my personal safety than anything else, and my claustrophobic anxiety kicked in so after waiting in the queue for almost 45 minutes at that point, I desperately wiggled my way back out for more space and air. The time to meet the bus was long past and when I caught my breath and found the courage to get back in the queue I focused on just getting down, figuring I'd deal with the gone bus later. I worked my way to the side edge of the queue which gave me a cool wall to lean on and a little more personal space. There were also people from another Princess tour around me and they allowed more space and were more patient.

I finally found my way down and much to my shock, our guide was waiting and I wasn't the only one missing...there was another couple he lost, too. I don't know where they were, but in a few minutes they showed up and we all made the trek back to the bus. I apologized profusely to the driver and the guide but found myself shaking as I got on the bus, swearing to myself not to get off again until we were back at the dock! Mrs Green was the lucky duck of the day. Our time to get on the bus was 3:15; in reality it was 4:30 and our time to be back onboard was 5:00 to sail at 5:30. We got back at 5:50 and fortunately the Captain waited for now infamous Group 6! We had to skip the handcraft market stop as a result of the delay in returning...

In the end I was happy to escape and a Long Island Ice Tea helped calm a frazzled me.