I woke up at 5:30 in the morning and drove with Yu and her sister to a forest monastery. Here they offered food to the monks. Well, I helped because women aren’t allowed to hand things to monks. They hope this will gain them some merit and be good luck for the school. I was surprised to see another westerner there and he turned out to be from the USA. His brother is a monk there. They gave us all a tour of the monastery, which mostly lies up on a hill. The abbot was gone unfortunately, and he is apparently kind of famous (but I don’t have his name).
Back in the city I got on the bus (it left 15-20 minutes late) and then a little while later it stopped at a gas station for another 20 minutes or so. Then I started to get a little worried since I wouldn’t have much time to get to my flight. After a few hours I could see the airport in the distance since it has the highest air traffic control tower in Asia. I got dropped off the bus, got in a taxi and went the 15km or so to the airport. There was less than an hour before my plane left, so I went over to the check-in counter, then went to immigration (long lines! I did ask one couple if I could go ahead of them), then to security (they had to hand search my bag too!), then ran the rest of the way to the gate. I was hot and sweaty after all the running, but I made it in time.
The plane didn’t leave on time, but about 45 minutes late. The airport was too busy and there was a long line to takeoff. It looked like a brand new airplane inside at least. Two hours later I arrived at the Low Cost Terminal in Kuala Lumpur. It sure was low cost, you walk down the stairs from the airplane, under the wing and into the terminal, which is all on the ground floor.
After buying a bus ticket into town I noticed the friend I was supposed to meet the next day was standing outside. I’m the one who is supposed to surprise people! But tonight I was surprised. We took a bus to Chinatown and was shown a few rooms. Finally I took a cheap dorm room with no blankets or anything.