Trip 1 - Malaysia - work days and going home!

The first day is always the hardest. Lots of jet lag means you get up late and still feel bad.
I did get to see several cool things during the day, though. The hotel was kind of a resort, with small 4-room buildings scattered over the property. The hotel is apparently one of the nicer ones in the area, and hosts several major events. My room was pretty came complete with mosquito nets, which I used every night after I saw several of the little buggers flying around. Along with the necessity of using bottled water only, it really makes you appreciate home. I got pretty good at rinsing my toothbrush with the bottle.

Walking around the grounds gave lots of interesting sights and sounds. In the morning, I could hear the Imam calling out the prayers (a few miles away!).
There were interesting birds, plants, and animals that you don't see back in the US.


One other interesting thing that I noticed was that the satellite antennas were all pointing straight up, rather than at an angle like in the US. At night, I also noticed that the moon and planets were directly overhead. It made sense once I thought about it - Malaysia is near the equator, and the satellites and planets would all be directly above the equator. Like I said - Interesting.


I was staying in Cyberjaya, which is a suburb of KL that was built to attract high-tech companies. There were lots of the major companies there (Dell, IBM, etc.) along with some other interesting buildings (World Health Organization for instance). When I went to work for the first time, the shuttle from the hotel went through the nice new buildings to the end of the road. I was thinking "That's interesting - there are no manufacturing plants here."

The shuttle continued on, and in the distance, I could see the plant. The plant is in the middle of an area being developed for manufacturing, but it is the first building to be built.

The plant was very new and nice. Most of the offices are still in the construction trailers, along with the cafeteria. The cafeteria consisted of a covered areas with picnic-style tables and a cooking/serving area. The cooks would make what you wanted or you could pick from the buffet trays. The food in the trays looked like a possibility, but I chose to eat freshly-cooked food while I was there. Nothing worse than being sick half a world from home.

The trip was successful, but very tiring. Remember what I said about the office starting their day after you have already worked 1/2 day? It is much worse in Malaysia. The office started work at 8 PM Malaysia time, so any meetings needed to be scheduled late in the evening. This meant that I had to go to bed late every night, and get up early to go to work the next day.

We left very early in the morning on Friday. After dinner (Thursday), I asked the desk to request a taxi for 1 o'clock. They said "in the afternoon"? I said "No - tonight." Our flight left at 3:30 AM. It was amazing how many people were at the KL airport at 1:30 AM, and I was stuck in a long line when I got there, but I made it.

The flight on Qatar Airlines went through Doha, Qatar, where we needed to change planes and spend a few "quality" hours. We arrived in Doha at 6 AM, went through security on the way in, and waited for several hours before going through security again.
Once we left Doha, we were finally on our way back to the US. The flights were understandably long - I was able to watch 7 complete movies on the flights, plus get a little sleep. By the time I got home, I had been traveling for 32 hours, but it was still the same day as I had left (Friday).

Trip 1 - Malaysia - arrival

Getting to Malaysia was interesting. Got to the airport in Berlin 2 hours before the flight, and proceeded to stand in line for 1.5 hours waiting for Air France to check us in. There were only 2 people handling the entire flight. Patience wins out. We thought we would need to run to the gate, but it turned out that the gate (and security) was (literally) right behind the check in desk.

Charles DeGaulle airport in Paris is the least traveler-friendly airport I have seen. When we got there, our flight was not yet on the departure lists. We figured out that we needed to go to terminal A. Following the signs for terminal A would have landed us in the baggage claim area. Hmm... we decided not to go that way, so we stood in line for a transfer agent to find out where we needed to go and perhaps get our boarding passes.

The transfer agent was helpful, but couldn't print out boarding passes. She told us to go down the hallway (which did not say terminal A), through passport control, and follow the signs. So we did. In the middle of the airport, we went through passport control - which gave us our exit visa from the EU. Seemed a bit odd - here we were in Paris, and we were officially out of the EU. Whatever!

Finally found some signs for terminal A, which led us to the end of the hall, downstairs, to a waiting room for a bus. Finally got on the bus (after the group going to terminal B was told that they had missed their flight), and ended up at terminal A - a LONG way from the main terminal.

Terminal A was built in the early '70s, and was opened to great fanfare and publicity, according to the photos in the terminal. Lots of Pan Am 707's in the pictures. Unfortunately, it looked like they had not done many upgrades since then. It was laid with a central hub connected to satellite terminals by underground walkways. The effect was a concrete spider laying on its back. Not a good way for a spider to be.

When we finally found our gate, we found the Malaysian airlines transfer desk. We suspected problems when we met the agent, who hand-fed our boarding passes into the printer (using another airline's passes). She also had a job application on her desk. Interesting.

Well the flight was OK, but the meals were interesting. Sitting next to the boss for 12 hours was not optimal. Arrived at Kuala Lumpur (KL) at 6 am and caught a taxi to our hotel.

The hotel didn't have our rooms ready (it was only 9 am), so we went to eat breakfast. By the time we finished, one of the rooms was ready, so we moved all of our stuff into the room and proceeded to figure out what sights we wanted to see.

You know, traveling with the boss is not a good thing. There was one and only one thing he wanted to see in KL - the Petronas towers. So off we went to see the towers in the hotel shuttle.

When we got there, we went straight to the ticket booth (tickets are free), and got tickets for 5:30 pm. Since it was now 12:30, we had lots of time to kill. Ate lunch in the mall under the towers, where they had many western favorites alongside local flavors.

After lunch, we went in search of the Hard Rock Cafe to buy boss' boys some shirts, then to a Hindu temple that he though looked like it held promise. The Hard Rock was - well, the Hard Rock. Same as everywhere else. The Hindu temple was draped in scaffolding and netting, so you couldn't see anything. Oh well.

Walking back to a taxi stand, we went down Petaling street in Chinatown. (Does every major city have a Chinatown? I wonder about Shanghai...) Interesting place - lots of vendors with inexpensive watches ("Rolex"), handbags ("Coach"), etc. Didn't buy a thing, though I could have bought a "real" Coach bag for 7 dollars.

Lacking anything else that boss wanted to do, we went back to the Petronas towers. After 10 minutes in the gift shop (typical junk), I decided to check if any tickets had been turned in. Nope. So then I decided to be the ignorant American, and get in line anyway. The ticket taker told us that it wasn't our time, but we could wait to see if there was room. I guess she liked me, because she turned others away, then let us go early.

The Petronas towers were pretty cool. They are the tallest twin towers in the world. The observation deck is 42 stories up, though the towers are > 90 stories tall. Petronas is not from Harry Potter, but is the Malaysian oil company. The towers are their main offices. The view of KL was good, but it was a bit hazy.

The Petronas towers are built as a Faraday Cage, which allows lighting to travel along the outside of the towers. This protects everything inside.

With the tour ended, we decided to go back early. The hotel shuttle didn't pick up until late in the evening, so we took the trains. There is a regular train that goes to the main station, then you can pick up the train to Cyberjaya (where the hotel is). Boss wasn't too keen on the trains, but I had no problem with them.

Got back to the hotel, and my room was ready (yay!).

Trip 1 - Germany

Traveling to Berlin was not much of a problem. The trip from Detroit to Amsterdam was on a 777, so I could pick the movies I watched. Didn't sleep much, and sitting near my boss for the whole time was interesting.

After landing in Berlin, we (my boss and I) had to navigate to the hotel near Leipzig. With my trusty Avis map, we got onto the Autobahn. Figured out where we were, and had no problems, but had to remember to stay in the right lanes if we were merely going 130 (kph).

The client offices are pretty cool. They are located in an area north of Lepzig call "Solar Valley". There are lots of wind turbines around and a field of solar panels. The office buildings even have solar panels on 3 sides.


Working consisted of lots of meetings and long hours. At 1 pm, the rest of the company on the east coast came to work, and some people though we should work the rest of the east coast day also.

Anyway, we finished all the work we needed on Friday, and drove up to Berlin to spend the night - ready for an early morning flight to Malaysia.

The traveling begins

Hopefully, this blog will help to keep my family and friends updated on my far-flung traveling for work.

Since I am starting this blog after the fact, I will attempt to catch up with some of my thoughts on the first trip which started at the beginning of October, 2009.

My boss called me to make reservations on a Friday to leave for Germany on Monday, continuing on to Malaysia the following Saturday. Researching the travel took a few days. From Malaysia, it was the same distance to go back home traveling east (over the Pacific) or west (back through Europe). Unfortunately, the cost was less to go back over Europe. If it had been my choice, it would have been the Pacific, as that would have completed a round-the-world trip!

The final routing for the trip was St. Louis to Detroit to Amsterdam to Berlin (Tegel); Berlin to Paris (DeGaulle) to Kuala Lumpur; KL to Doha, Quatar, to Washington, DC to St. Louis. Quite a trip over a 2-week period!

So... Off I go!