Hotel Quarantine: Preparing to Leave

22nd March 2021

I am getting ready to leave the delights of the Marriott Putrajaya, Kuala Lumpur, after six days and five nights stay. I only have one more night, and then I really am leaving the next day. Yippee, so exciting! I flew in from London on flight MH3, and so far, I think I’ve survived my quarantine in pretty good shape, despite my taxi driver trying to kill me.

“I have to drive fast, otherwise I fall asleep,” said the overtired, but friendly Indian at the wheel, who’d just professed to driving to Kelantan (8 hours away) and back during the night. Blimey, what else could go wrong?

I have practiced yoga every day – I started a 30-day yoga course and already I’m up to day 13. I’ve studied Geology and Climate Change – nothing too heavy or serious for my stay. I’ve watched all 12 episodes of Homeland, Series 8. Well, actually I’ve saved the last one for tonight. I’ve joined a global conference and met all sorts of interesting people whilst perched on the edge of my double deluxe bed in my oh-so-typically-Marriott-styled (bare and brown) room.

I've eaten endless meals of fish – several times a day in fact, only occasionally interspersed with a bit of stringy chicken. At least I got to savour ikan bilis (the fried anchovies I love so much) once, and the piece de resistance, sushi, my fave, on Day 5, before sadly, they appeared to change the chef and we were fed semi-cooked jelly-like lukewarm fish for the remainder of the meals.

“I’ll come and pick you up just after 10:30 am tomorrow morning then, shall I?” asks Gary, my husband of nearly 28 years.

“No, don’t do that, I’ll call you when I’m heading down to reception and you can leave then,” I reply. “That way, by the time I’m done with all the formalities, you’ll be here!”

I carefully packed my suitcase, then crammed in my shoes and the Van Gogh Starry Nights jigsaw I’d rather optimistically brought with me but hadn’t even bothered starting.

It’s 9:30 pm when the friendly receptionist calls: “Hello ma’am, sorry to disturb you ma’am, but you have check-out tomorrow morning at 10:30 am ma’am, don’t forget!”.

As if I could forget! I’ve been counting the days, hours, minutes until my release, what could possibly go wrong?

I just had one more online meeting to attend, and one more episode of Homeland (possibly with a small shot of my smuggled in, terribly smoky and peaty Ardbeg malt whisky), and then one more sleep and then up and go!

As I snuggled under my duvet, I relished the thought that this really was my last ever night here and soon Gary would be here to pick me up and I’d be out and about in KL at last.

I woke with a start to the sound of excited voices dragging suitcases on wheels passed my bedroom door. Gosh, they must be up early. Crikey! I glanced at the hotel alarm clock by my bed – the red LED lights were screaming 10:34! Ten thirty-four, oh no – I’d overslept. The irony – what a class idiot I was! How could that possibly be – every day I’d been waking at the crack of dawn, when they brought our lukewarm breakfast, and now, when actually it really mattered what time I got up, I’d not set the alarm and they were all leaving without me!

Nightmarish visions of having missed the deadline for leaving and being forced to stay another week occurred to me as I tried to put on a pair of knickers whilst cleaning my teeth and jumping on the suitcase lid at the same time. Finally, half decently dressed and semi-clean, still in a state of complete panic I phoned reception and explained that everyone had left without me and no-one had knocked on my door or told me to leave yet.

“Don’t worry ma’am, you have plenty time, no rush, just come down with your suitcase when you’re ready!” Phew, I was getting out after all.