23/3 – Hard work and lots of travel

The final weekend is approaching. As usual, everybody has his plans ready to celebrate again. That includes me; I intend to complete my Metropolis Trilogy: After The Fellowship of Bangkok, The Return of Hong King we are about to close this saga with The Twin Petronas Towers.

First though, there’s the tiny matter of phase C. A huge task is still before us. I have to get some serious evidence to back up my guesstimate of last night. So it’s back to work. I also have a planning and phasing to make, and apart from that there’s loads of other tasks to pick up. Cost planning is the first thing I have to get out of the way though. I’ve made some guesses which I’m far from sure about, and which therefore will need some serious checking. When I’m done though, I have a big smile on my face: My final result is less than 4% off from what I estimated the night before! Beginner’s luck I guess.



This day is working out much better than the previous one. I’m in the zone, all calculations seem to work, I have some good ideas for turning those boring numbers into graphs and when it comes to tieing everything together the words just seem to flow onto the screen. Most importantly: the computer doesn’t crash. All hail OSX!

The day's highlight is the stakeholder meeting. Some of us play stakeholders during a townhall meeting, and the thing gets kind of out of hand. Higlight is Nick as the village chief, wearing a sarong and stroking a wooden elephant.



We’re done around 4pm, and we leave immediately for Miri. Some people need to catch the plane to KK, my plane to KL isn’t leaving until 9:40pm though. I planned it rather late; after the three hours at the border last week I didn’t feel confident about catching the early plane, and I’d like to have some dinner as well. However, it will mean a very late arrival in KL. I join Chia in his car, and we arrive around 5pm in Miri. I repack my stuff for the trip to KL in Frank’s room; he’s leaving for Bario in the highlands the next day to do some hiking.

Tan takes Chia, Frank and me back to the seafood place we had dinner at some weeks ago. This time we mix in some deer and beef among the prawns, and it’s even better than last time. I especially love the ferns… never had that kind of veggie in Holland. Will have to check for it.

At 8:30 it’s on to the airport. I meet Nick and Nyza, who are going to KL as well. Nick’s going to party with a buddy, Nyza’s going home. The AirAsia plane is late as usual. I talk on the phone with dad, and finally the plane leaves, about a half hour late. It’s a two hour flight, and when I finally get off the plane and say bye to Nick and Nyza, it’s 12:30. Now I have to take a cab. It’s a long drive to town, about 90 minutes. It costs me about a ringgit a minute… the driver is not the best one around; neither is his car. He drives fast, the speedometer bounces up and down because it’s broken and we make an unscheduled stop of about 15 minutes to que up for petrol. Oh and by the way, the car smells like someone emptied a bottle of Worcestershire sauce in the airco unit. When I arrive at the Hotel Nikko, my new home for the next two days, I am a very tired but happy man. It’s 2am, and I don’t do much anymore besides crashing on the bed. Everything else can wait until the morning.