Getaway 2010: Step By Step

OK, now that I have all those episodes done, allow me now to talk about the things that I did in preparation to the getaway. The steps are not necessarily in order: e.g. I initiated step 2 early but we only executed it in mid-April.

Step 1: Itinerary

I started drawing the itinerary as early as last year in my head. Started drawing it out in detail in early January 2010 with Frankfurt being the starting and ending point. I then searched for possible connections and potential cities/countries that included Russia and Morocco. Trust me, when I started, I had at least three additional countries included in my itinerary.

I had to re-draw my itinerary and change the starting/ending city to Paris when MAS had its travel fair in early February as the KUL-FRA-KUL was not on offer. Then I had to re-draw the consequent cities/countries and dropped some countries off as Lin felt the itinerary was too packed. Had it been me alone, I would have gone ahead anyway because it’s not often that I can go on a two-week holiday, and I might as well travel as much/far as I can while I’m at it.

Like I said, drawing itineraries involved finding potential cities and countries to visit and hence included finding flight and ground transportation connections. But I love doing all these anyway.

Step 2: Visa, Visa, Visa

Oh no, I wasn’t referring to Visa card (I prefer to use MasterCard to Visa anyway) but the visa requirements. Most European countries no longer impose visa requirements on Malaysians but some still do, unfortunately (some of the former Soviet Union countries). I called up my parents’ trusted travel agent and asked him if he knew who could help arrange for Russian visas and he suggested calling Parlo. Turned out that, yes, Parlo does arrange not only for Russian visa, but also Moroccan. There’s another travel agency that can also help with Russian visa but they don’t do Moroccan. The cost for a Russian visa is RM560/person and if you need it in a hurry, add another RM200 (the other travel agency charges RM10 less). Moroccan visa costs RM130. So, yes, it was a steep cost for me - especially since shortly after that, I had to make a new passport as I feared my fully stamped passport would pose problems to the Russian authority (especially the Russian). Of course this also meant extra effort - retrieving my passport from Parlo, going to the immigration to make a new passport, collecting the passport the next morning and sending the new one to Parlo again. Anyway, I digress.

Of course you also need a piece of passport photo each for each visa application.

Step 3: Lodging

I set out to find accommodation for us at all the cities we would be staying at. And re-did the process for triple-sharing lodgings for Riga, Moscow and Saint Petersburg when Fifi confirmed going. I always set a ceiling of E30/night. Some places cost us more, some less. I purposely chose a hotel close to the railway station in Düsseldorf as we had to board an early morning bus to the airport from the railway station. For Marrakesh, I chose Riad Dar Khmissa which is located between Jamaa el Fna and the Medina. For Paris, I had some misgivings about some of the hotels and went into websites such as tripadvisor.com to find out the reviews. Also as metro stations almost always have stairs instead of escalators or lifts, in the end, I chose a hotel close to Gare du Nord. I prefer walking to lugging my bag up and down the stupid stairs.

Step 4: Ground Transportation

I also searched for ground transportation - from airport/train station to the city centre, from the city centre to the airport, getting to the hotel etc. That’s another reason for choosing a hotel near Gare du Nord; it’s on the RER B line to/from the airport. And thanks to a link, I also managed to find out the Moscow-Saint Petersburg overnight train schedules, the costs of overnight train rides (different trains charge different rates and they started from as ‘little’ as E59.99 for a berth or E39.95 for a third class seat), how many berths were left and how to buy them. We bought the train tickets online as we didn’t fancy having to communicate to surly train people in Moscow.

Step 5: Where to go and what to do

This is a joint effort between the three of us and hence I will not, cannot and should not take full credit for it. We bought tickets for the ballet at Bolshoi, Hermitage in Saint Petersburg and Versailles online.

Step 6: Prayer times, halal restaurants and local mosques

I searched for prayer times and halal restaurants (and vegetarian too) if any (not applicable in Morocco and Paris as one is a Muslim country and the other has a sizeable Muslim population).

Step 7: Money, money, money

Thanks to the depreciating Euro, we got more out of our Ringgit this time around. The downside of a depreciating Euro though is that some moneychangers in KL were running out of Euro and GBP.

Step 8: Leave application

I had already alerted my supervisor and colleagues that I would be taking leave as early as back in February (told you the steps are not in order). I finally applied for leave nine days before departure.

Step 9: Pack!

What to bring? As usual, I was guided by my packing order to some extent. Apart from the usual (clothes, toiletries, prayer attire and compass, food, air and train tickets, museum tickets), I also packed copies of my passport. Ahh, but I over-packed as usual ;(

Step 10: Pray

And I don’t just mean performing prayers. I prayed that the journey would go smoothly, that there would be no volcanic ash cloud threatening disruption of our journey, that we would not face bureaucracy problems in Russia and elsewhere and that we wouldn’t miss our flight, train, bus etc. well, I did get delayed at the Moscow immigration but that was it, thankfully.

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Germany suffered a shocking loss to Serbia (well, they were down to ten men), Slovenia scored two wonderful goals (I could not fault the way the Slovenes play at all; they were such a joy to watch – except, they should have scored more and won. And remember, to get to the World Cup, the least populous nation in the World Cup beat Russia – and that surely was no mean feat) but the US (the most populous nation in the competition) equalised and the Three Lions were so bad that they only managed a goalless draw with the Desert Foxes (according to Steven Howard, the former were ‘drab, dreary, depressing, disjointed, at times desperate and, overall, dull as ditchwater’). Oranje sliced the Blue Samurais (though they played shakily and nervously), Ghana only managed a draw with ten-man Socceroos and it was Danish Delight as the Danes beat Cameroon 2-1 to send the latter packing out of the World Cup. The Slovaks displayed a tired performance against Paraguay (they lost 0-2), Azzurri couldn’t get past the bulky All Whites despite all the attack and Brazil became the first team to win with ten men, beating Ivory Coast 3-1.

I still don’t get why Klose and Kaka were red-carded. They are not and have never been malicious type of players. Oh, just read that apparently Brazil didn’t play like Brazil and Fabiano is a lying cheat.