Mosher'sUnimaginativelyEntitledBlog
–**– The Blog Without A Bloody Annoying Tagline –**–
Updates will be back to “as and when” now as internet access will be variable. In the meantime, check out my travel blog as that will have the priority over the waffle here.
Now I’m going to sit back in the 20-degree warmth with a cool beer and chill out.
Suckers.
Erm, yeah. That didn’t take long. After the earlier post I started looking into flight prices and have booked myself a 1-way ticket on Iceland Airways to Reykjavic. I fly out on January 4th for a few days and will likely head to Copenhagen after that for a the weekend, before getting an expense-paid flight to Geneva and on to Chamonix to work again.
As you do.
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Sat delayed at Kuala Lumpur airport. I was told the flight would be at 13:40. It’s 13:20 and no sign of a boarding call.
However, there’s a guy sat next to me who’s just found out he has a 4-hour delay. And he wants a cigarette. And he can’t.
His response? “They need a smoking room!”
Mine: “Quit, you idiot.”
Not to his face. He’s big and American and he’d probably try to sue me.
Yup, I complain about banks. But as ever in fairness, good and professional customer treatment deserves a mention also. Step up Lloyds TSB.
This evening I was checking my mail when I got a message from my dad with two scanned pages attached. Somehow my Lloyds account had gone over my overdraft limit. Strange as I’ve not touched the account in at least a year. The last transaction was a minute interest payment (of about 1p) in March.
So I went to the online banking for the first time in… I don’t know how long. And discovered about 10 transactions from September 8th to September 25th, all in Malaysia.
I ran back to my hotel room and, yup, the card was gone. I kept it in a bag within a bag, so someone had been rooting to find it. They’d also left my Advanced PADI card and a credit card in the same compartment untouched. I’d simply not checked on the card in ages as I don’t use it – it’s a backup in case my Nationwide card gets pinched.
Needless to say I’m mystified how they were using it. It actually looks like ATM withdrawals which is astounding as nobody could know my PIN. It wasn’t written down (I’ve never written it down since I selected it), I couldn’t have been overlooked using it and it couldn’t have been “skimmed” – the last two simply as I’ve not used the card since Thailand over two years ago, as far as I can recall.
Bizarre.
Well, I called the stolen card number. Of the twenty minutes I was on the phone, I spent maybe three in total on hold. The rest of the time I was talking to someone to get my card blocked, and then to another person sorting out a refund of the fees and a “fraud” form that I need to sign.
Thankfully, as my passport proves, I was in Indonesia for all but one of the withdrawals. I also think I can prove I was in a different part of Malaysia when that one withdrawal went through. I have a feeling they’re all in Kuala Lumpur and I was in Tanah Rata on the 8th.
With any luck, they’ll try to use the blocked card again somewhere and get caught. A shame that, even though it’s a Muslim country, I don’t think Malaysia chops hands off thieves any more. I know I’d like ten minutes in a locked cell with the *****.
Thing is, this makes three visits to Kuala Lumpur and two thefts – I had my PSP swiped on my last stopover. Somehow I have a better vibe about Lloyds TSB than Kuala Lumpur these days.
I’ve had two “conversations” in particular recently with people following me down the street trying to sell me stuff. Im in Kuta on the island of Bali, and the people here can be pretty persistent when they want to separate you from your cash.
One person I completely ignored was a women yelling “Mister! Massage, mister! Massage? Mister? MISTER!!! MASSAGE!!!”
Why did I ignore her? Because I was stood at the Bali Bombing Memorial trying to read the names of the dead. Pretty much the most inappropriate place in Bali to try and sell someone a body rub (likely followed by a quick ****). If she thought I was rude by walking off, she obviously had no idea how rude she was being.
Of the original two, though, both occurred on the same night. I’d met up with an Aussie guy, Zane, and we were looking for somewhere to get a beer quite late on. As we pounded the pavement along the beach front, a shifty guy fell into pace behind us.
“Hash, boss? You want hash?”
I kept walking.
“Marijuana?”
“No.”
“Blow, weed? Boss? You want some smoke?”
“No.”
By now I was reaching “pissed off”.
“Coke, boss. I get you coke?”
I stopped. I turned. He smiled, thinking he had a sale.
“Look. Just **** OFF.”
His smile rapidly vanished as he scowled and scuttled off. Harsh, but effective.
A couple of hours later as we staggered back to our relevant domiciles, we were both accosted by a prostitute. She hopped off a moped driven by someone else and grabbed my balls through my trousers. Now, the last time this happened, I lost my wallet. Reaction 1 – hand into pocket to grab the cash so that wouldn’t happen again.
The usual spiel: “Me **** you hard, you want me to **** you hard? Me suck you.”
She then grabbed Zane’s package. “Both of you, yes? **** me at same time?”
“We’re gay,” I told her.
“Gay?”
“Yes – he is my boyfriend. I don’t like women.”
She looked confused. OK, tactic two.
“Do you speak dirty? Bad words?”
Now she understood. “Yes, you like that? You want me to talk dirty while you **** me?”
“No, I want to make sure you understand dirty words. Let go of my balls or I’ll break your ******* nose, you bitch.”
She actually looked offended as she backed off and got onto the moped.
Still, effective. And after the last whore who touched my nutsack ripped me off, I’m not against following through on my promises. What’s she going to do, report it to the police? Prostitution‘s illegal.
I just want to say I like it here. Weather’s great, food’s superb, it’s dirt cheap and people **** off when you tell them to.
