I will pass this way but once...

If I may turn this phrase to another use...


There comes a time in life when you realise that some places you will only visit for the first and only time. A large city like Paris, you may have a chance of visiting again. But that beautiful beach you glimpse as the bus goes past, those fascinating locals you meet on your day out, no, you are not likely to see those a second time. And anyway you cannot step in the same river twice. The world moves on, you change.


To every local who helped me gain my bearings, or overlooked my massacre of your language while trying to communicate: obrigado e felicidade. To every fellow traveller who shared stories and tips: thank you, and may the way be smooth for you.

And thanks to you dear reader for tolerating my rambles and jokes.

Timezone arithmetic 7 and signing off

The jump from Paris to Kuala Lumpur is from UTC+1 to UTC+8. That's a big difference of 7 hours and it's west to east, the difficult direction.

I have a method of dealing with this that I call The Flip. Problem is I don't know how well it works or even if it really does. I may be imagining it. But here it is for what it's worth.

There are two lows in the body activity, one during the normal sleep at night and a smaller one in the afternoon (the siesta!). The idea is to turn the smaller low into the normal night sleep. So you have to have been in the habit of taking an afternoon nap in the days before returning, which could be a small impracticality given that you don't want to waste any touring time. Say you have been napping at 1600 in Paris. This is 2300 in KL. Just go to KL and try to sleep longer on your "nap" at 2300. But you will find yourself waking up at 2 or 3 am. Oh well.

The blog ends here as I will be spending time with my family in KL and those activities are not of general interest. There may be some supplementary posts to fill in gaps for the final days, but otherwise this is me signing off.

CbdG

Charles de Gaulle airport should really have a 4-letter acronym so we fix that by inserting the great Aussie adjective.

The circular shape, interwowen ramps and satellite terminals of Terminal 1 may look elegant architecturally but confuses the heck out of passengers. When you emerge through passport control on arrival you go up to retrieve your luggage. So intiutive. The amount of space available for queueing for exit passport control has long been inadequate. The PA system could belong to a Tati film.

Terminal 2 is more conventional but rather strung out, like a chain of beads. I can't comment on Terminal 3 because I didn't use it.

To make things worse, the RER B from Paris arrives at Terminal 3, well actually close to 3 at Roissypole, and then goes on to 2. To get to Terminal 1 you have to change to an albeit free shuttle. That's for the RER (regional train from Paris). If you arrive by long-distance train, in particular TGV services, then you are at the SNCF station at 2. And we haven't got to the buses yet. Got all of that?

To be fair, the metro and RER B did deliver me to CdG comfortably and speedily. They do trains well in France.

I have yet to find an ideal entry airport for Europe. I was told my backpack was misplaced when I reached Rome, so I have bad memories of it, though I got it back a few days later. To be fair, it wasn't Rome's fault, it was either the Sydney or KL baggage handlers. But Rome airport is worn-out. I'm not game to try London with its alleged luggage loss rate, and besides you still have take the train or a shuttle flight to get to mainland Europe. Amsterdam is well-run but you'd better have a sackful of Euro shrapnel to feed the NS (Netherlands Railways) vending machines if you are going any distance immediately, or a PIN bankcard, or pay the service fee for a counter purchase of a ticket; since NS doesn't believe that their vending machines should accept banknotes. Frankfurt airport was ok, but a bit ugly. Madrid was ok, though a bit old, and might be viable if you can get a shuttle flight. It was the cheapest airport to commute from, only 2 € and half of that was the airport line surcharge. Come to think of it Barcelona's pretty good too. Zurich was also good, but travelling anywhere by rail in Switzerland costs an arm and a leg compared to the rest of Europe. I have yet to try Vienna.

Anyway once I got to the boarding gates and into the Malaysian Airline plane, I had no more reason to gripe and it was goodbye Europe, for this time.