View from KL Tower
The next morning, we got ready to leave KL. I wrote in my notebook that I’d ‘had enough,’ meaning that with all the changes to the city and all the emotion of the previous day’s revisiting, I was ready to move on. The one thing I would have liked to do was visit the Batu Caves, and I think the Teenager would have enjoyed that too, but otherwise there was nothing more for me in the city. And being a rural dweller at heart, I was feeling a little overwhelmed and suffocated in the middle of all the huge buildings, the bustle and noise. I was looking forward to some quiet and a slower pace.
As we were driven to the airport, I asked myself how I felt about leaving the city that used to be home, not knowing when I would next return. I wondered if it would be painful or sad. In fact, I felt OK. I was ready to leave; I had done what I needed to do and I had seen the changes. I had brought myself up to date. I wasn’t leaving the country but I knew I was leaving the past where it belonged.
The flight to Penang was delayed. I was determined not to be too nervous but, with my history as a fearful flier (last blogged about here) and the focus on flight safety due to the missing plane MH370, it was difficult not to feel a little uneasy. We would be flying Malaysia Airlines and the plane would be a Boeing 737, small enough to feel you are really flying!
Unfortunately, the flight was very bumpy. It had started to rain the previous evening, after a very long – too long – dry period, and it was still raining now. The clouds were thick and we were buffeted about on our ascent. It felt as if the plane was being tossed about in the sky like a two-seater might be. I was holding on to the armrests and people were gasping and screaming. Incredibly, there was no apology or explanation. I have flown thousands and thousands of miles and I know that turbulence is normal and nothing to be worried about, but I also know that usually someone in the cockpit has a little chat with the passengers about the weather and if there are a few bumps they say sorry.
Obviously, we arrived in Penang in one piece. We both agreed, however, that we had not enjoyed the experience and that we were not keen on taking the next flight, which would be on a propeller plane, to Langkawi, or the flights back to Singapore later on. We wondered about changing some or all of our internal flights to other modes of transport.
So this is what transpired: we would eventually be travelling back from the very North of Malaysia to Singapore by coach. This would entail a very brief overnight stay in KL. Having thought that I had left the city, I found that I would, in just a few days, be back again. This seemed so significant to me. Just as, six months previously, I had not known that I would be visiting Malaysia at all, this time I had no idea I would be returning to KL. I learned, for the umpteenth time, that we can be so wrong. We can be absolutely convinced that something is impossible, only to find ourselves proved wrong almost the very next moment. I am reminded of one of my very favourite phrases, coined by Deepak Chopra, which is ‘the wisdom of uncertainty.’ We don’t know. We can’t assume. What might seem like an impossible miracle today could become reality tomorrow.
So we’d left KL, and I was at peace with that. We had arrived in Penang, which used to be called ‘the pearl of the orient.’ I was ready to discover more changes and also for some much needed R&R and strolling on the beach.
Is there something you think can’t possibly happen? Could you be wrong?
