Quarantine in Kuala Lumpur

Somewhere between the icy winds of Mt. Tongariro and a hazardous stroll through a congested market in urban Bali, I contracted a nasty little bug. This pest soon morphed into a full blown upper respiratory infection that not only gave me a thunderous cough, but the inclination to a call on medical attention in Asia. I’m hard to find at a doctor’s office at home, if that helps clarify how dire my condition became. But there was no moment quite as perilous as facing the confines of quarantine upon arrival in Malaysia.

When our flight landed at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport, we deplaned not to the cheery and festive faces we had grown accustom to in places like Fiji and New Zealand, but to stern eyes raking over us from above tightly strapped surgical masks. Without masks we were a minority. Blue masks, grey masks, green masks, black masks, designer masks—and me, my stuffed nose and whooping mouth of bacteria exposed to the world. I never knew the sensation of having a naked face until this moment. The feather in my throat now stroked heavily at my esophagus. Brutal. I stifled a cough that would have crumbled the walls of the airport, and dizzily followed the crowd toward the sign that read: H1N1 QUARANTINE CHECKPOINT.

Attempting to hide amongst the sea of people filing through customs was futile. I imagined a massive red arrow bobbing just above my head, shouting out to the customs agents, “This is who you’re looking for!” Trying to appear healthy and sprite, I approached the counter to receive my compulsory questionnaire. I grasped a pen in my sweaty palm and scanned the questions on the form. Oh, no.

Have you recently been to a country defined as a H1N1 hot zone by the World Health Organization (Australia)?

Check.

Have you been trekking in any remote areas?

Check.

Have you been suffering from a cough for more than five days?

Check.

I am not the lying type. And I especially don’t like lying to immigration officers in developing countries. But it was time to throw my moral concerns to the wind. I answered “no” to every question on the form.

Moments later I was standing before the customs officer, knees knocking as he discriminately flipped through my passport. He paused for a moment on my Chinese visa, and took a long look at an old stamp from a port in Mexico. There was to be trouble. And then he opened the page with a stamp from Australia so fresh I think the ink had yet to dry. The time had come. Visions of dark hallways, gloved doctors, and padded rooms danced in my head. I was ready to throw myself at the mercy of the officer, confess all my sins, and explode with the cough that was bottled so deep in my chest. The words were forming on my tongue when he reached for his stamp, pounded it against his ink pad, and pressed it to the inside of my passport. I don’t think he’d ever seen an American so happy to be in Malaysia.