Meet New People

I think I left off somewhere during my 20 hour layover at Kuala Lumpur International Airport. As far as 20 hour layovers go, I had a fairly entertaining one. On Sunday night I made friends with a Japanese girl named Kuni, chatted with a few airport employees I'd met before - Karthic from Dunkin Donuts at LCCT, Zahara from the MiniStop convenience store where I've purchased approximately 20 liters of water, Faiz from the smoothie shop, and Kelly, the AirAsia employee who helped me out last Saturday when the 14 of us were re-attempting to fly to Vientiane. Unfortunately I didn't run into Zul or Sudirman, which would have really brought everything full circle. Is it strange that I am on a first-name basis with so many employees at KLIA? Maybe. Anyway, I slept in the same booth of the "Taste of Asia" restaurant where Sam, Brian, Cody and I had slept on Thursday night, and was shaken awake at 5 AM by the same Malaysian man. I ate some breakfast with an Indonesian businessman named Efert who let me use his phone to check my email and then gave me some travel advice for his country, so that I can start planning my next escape from America. Later, when I got in line to check in for my flight to Mumbai, I noticed that the guy in front of me, a German freelance music writer named Matthias, was (like me) also wearing a Laos party tank so of course we struck up a conversation and hung out until we had to board the flight. An airport is the best place to make friends...plain and simple.

As I was boarding, I offered to switch seats with an Indian woman so that she could sit next to her husband en route to Mumbai. I got to talking with her husband, Anbalagan, a Malaysian from Ipoh who works with the government to hand out research and development grants to foreigners working on projects in Malaysia. After I told him that my areas of interest are statistics and international law, he began to discuss with me the possibility of my coming to Malaysia on a government-sponsored six to twelve month R&D opportunity in the near future. He explained that the whole process is actually quite simple, and that the Prime Minister currently has a huge endowment and is signing off on all sorts of projects. After we exchanged emails, he went on to advise me on my travel plans for my month in India, as well as offer me as a gift his copy of "Sai Baba Charitra", a holy book for daily devotional reading, and explain to me the basics of the philosophy. Another flight, another potentially life-changing occurrence.

I arrived in Mumbai and had about three hours to kill before my domestic flight to Goa, so I left the airport to find some lunch. I walked into the first restaurant that I saw and struck up a conversation with Fernandes, who was sitting at the table next to me and putting back a few Kingfisher beers. It turned out that he was also headed to Goa, but had missed his earlier flight and was now set to depart on the same flight as me. Fernandes was born and raised in Goa but has lived in London since 1991, and is back now to sell some beach-front property that he's been holding onto for about 15 years. I invited him to join me at my table, bought him a beer and explained why I couldn't share one with him, to which he replied, "Have one of these Cuban cigars then, they're gluten-free man, trust me". Great stuff. Anyway, we walked back to the airport, had another drink, casually strolled to our boarding gate as they were making the announcement, "Final call for passengers Fernandes and Daniel"...I guess we sort of lost track of time.

On the 40-minute flight, he insisted that I accompany him to Colva, his hometown in South Goa. We hired a taxi together and he helped me to purchase an Indian SIM card, a rather arduous process that involved me making photocopies of my passport, visa, and driver's license, as well as writing my John Hancock on something like 17 different forms. You would think that I was trying to lease an apartment here or something. But once all of that was sorted, Fernandes treated me to a proper feast at a beach-side restaurant. Three hours later, I was fully stuffed with tandoori chicken, vegetable stir-fry, prawn curry, steamed rice, salad, etc. I love Indian food and it's nearly ALL gluten-free. After dinner, we had one last drink and made plans to meet up later this week once he has handled his business here in Goa.

By the time I checked into my guesthouse, it was nearly midnight. Reality set in that I hadn't slept in a bed since Friday night and had been awake for 101 of the last 120 hours, and I instantly crashed. I woke up at 8 AM and stumbled down to the beach, where a few cows were chilling like kings while thousands of Indians bathed in the shallow waters of the Arabian Sea.

Later on in the day, I attempted to retrieve the last two days of photos from my newly purchased camera in order to use them for this post, only to realize that one must FORMAT one's memory card before taking any photos if one actually wants to SAVE those photos. A belated thanks to the lady who sold me the camera for letting me know this information. So I formatted the memory card and of course it erased everything. Even when I don't lose cameras, I still lose the photos. But I'm drinking a coconut on the beach in Goa and it's 95 and sunny, so as usual, I'm not going to dwell on it.

I'm enjoying the laid back attitude here as well as the grand hospitality of my new friend Fernandes. My body absolutely despises me right now, and for good reason, so over the next few days I plan to just relax on the beach and do some reading and writing. Much love from India.

Location: Colva, Goa, India