On Saturday we flew from Langkawi to KL. I was both sad to be leaving such an amazing place but excited at the prospect of what lay ahead. The flight was ok and we managed to get into KL about 15 minutes ahead of time. We hoped that we might make the F1 qualifying but it took too long to get from the airport due to a lot of waiting around. Our hotel was literally a couple of minutes from the airport. When we got to the room I must admit I wasn't impressed. It was tiny. There was just enough room to fit the bed in never mind two people and two suitcases. I went downstairs to see if there was another room but as I thought they were fully booked. In the evening we went into KL to meet a couple of Vickis friends at the Hard Rock Cafe. The taxi driver was practicing for the race I think. He was driving at 80mph touring car style. Cutting across lanes, tailgating other cars, it was literally bumper to bumper for 45 minutes. I have never felt so scared about my safety in all of my life. Fortunately we got to KL in one piece. We drove under the Petronas Towers and got an amazing view. We ate, listened to a band and everyone but me danced. I don't do dancing. The weird thing is seeing everyone smoking indoors. I'm so used to it being smoke free inside that it felt odd seeing people light up. Anyway it must have been half one by the time we made a move. We walked down the road and found a taxi. By the time we got to the hotel it was about half two. I was hoping to have a decent nights sleep before race day.
I woke up on Sunday feeling very tired. We ate at the airport before getting on a shuttle bus to the circuit. I thought that we would get dropped off at the circuit. Well we did, on the other side of what can only be described as a motorway. There were streams of people being dropped off and we all had to run across three lanes, clamber over the central reservation then run across another three lanes. Not how I expected to arrive at Sepang! We then got a bus to the main entrance. After the mission of trying to find where to get our tickets we finally got them and proceeded to wander through the mall area. If you look at a map of Sepang it is situated at the wide end of the V shaped grandstand. We had to leave the central area to get another bus so e could get to our ticket area. This seemed to take forever. We were at turn 11 but could see from turn 9 to turn 14 and some of the following straight, give of take a few trees blocking the view. For me it was a fantastic view and as the weekend ticket only cost £15 it was definately value for money. In the distance we could see a storm and it was thundering quite a lot. We weren't sure if it would actually hit, this was about half an hour before the race started. Well by the time the race was red flagged on lap 8 we were drenched. I took some video of the cars going round behind the safety car because the spray coming off the cars was unbelievable. You see it on the tv but when you can actually see it for yourself it is something different. We eventually got a rain mac but it was too little too late although it did keep us warm. It was such a surreal experience, we were at the Malaysian GP. I couldn't quite believe I was watching F1 cars flying passed me. We had a tv screen in front of us but it was just too far away to see the names on the screen so I was counting the cars as they came round to work out positions. I could recognise some of the drivers from their helmets. You know the drivers push the cars to the limit but seeing the back ends twitching as they accelerated out of turn 11 was awesome. It looked like they were going to get a tank slapper going but they quickly got the car under control. The engine noise was deafening as they screamed passed. I actually thought my ears were bleeding at one point. I knew they were loud but that was something else. It was disappointing to see Button have a bad race but towards the end I was cheering on Perez as I could see he was getting closer to Alonso every lap. At one point I thought he was going to pull it off but sadly not. I don't know where Perez ran wide but I did see a Sauber in the gravel at turn 9. The crowd was entertaining. At one point the whole of our section and the next were doing Mexican waves. Our section which was undercover were doing it properly but the next was uncovered so they were just lifting their umbrellas up. There were people rolling down the bank and running with banners. It was a fantastic atmosphere.
Getting out of the circuit was hideous. We walked all the way back to the main entrance which was miles but the buses were crammed. They were so full I'm surprised people didn't have their faces pressed up against the windows. Clearly no health and safety in Malaysia. We paid for a bus rather than get the free one because otherwise we would have been there all night. There is a garage across from the main entrance which was rammed. The motorway was at a standstill heading into KL and people were making a dash across the road as we had to on the way in. Eventually the nightmare ended and we got dropped at the hotel. I have been going through my photos of the GP for three days now and I still haven't finished erasing all of the rubbish ones. I must have taken a thousand.
On Monday we left KL and headed back to Brunei. For someone that's scared of flying you do not want the captain to tell you that the flight is delayed because of a problem and that there's going to be turbulence then hear lots of odd noise coming from somewhere on the aircraft. It turned out fine and we landed in Brunei to rain and cold. 25 degrees may not sound cold but when you are used to 33 degrees and blazing sunshine it is. I also saw my first snake. Unfortunately it had just been flattened by a passing car.
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