Said my farewells to Simon and Joy at 6am. Not because I had an early flight - thats just when they go to work! Thank god im unemployed. Even still I was off to the airport at 7am, Koncrete giving me a lift. Its nice to have your own chauffer.
Got through customs and everything fine. I was a little worried as I had an e-ticket printed off the internet (dad had booked from aus) but they didnt even ask for it - just gave me my boarding pass when I said my name! Thank god noone else asked for it.
Before boarding your flight there are the usual duty free shops selling grog, cameras, perfume etc at good prices. Only thing is that all of the grog and most of the perfumes are over 100ml in size and you cant bring those sized bottles in hand luggage! So I would have been quite pissed off had I bought a bottle of Chivas Regal only to see it thrown into the bin as I go through another stage of security! The stupidest thing is that some countries like Australia and Thailand go to these lengths for security, but the planes coming into Bangkok are from places like Nepal and could be laden with 1L bottles of booze.
The flight to Kuala Lumpur was the shittest I've been on yet. I dont mind roughing it to save a few hundred bucks, but considering I'd paid extra for the meal it was still gross! I usually love airline food to an extent, but this meal was just a gross set meal shoved into one small container. Well its about time I experienced a true airline meal. Though I wasnt happy to have to pay for water, especially when I couldnt bring any more than 100ml on myself!
I was only stopping over in Kuala Lumpur for a few (6) hours before continuing onto Brunei where I was meeting ma and pa. I didnt know what to expect as I'd never been in transit at an airport before. I figured it would be like what I saw at the Bangkok airport - you just walk down a different corridor and wait in a transit lounge. Of course I was wrong, and I nervously looked for any corridors that would lead me away from the custom counters. I didnt have a visa and had no idea of the requirements - some countries you need to prearrange them! The chic just looked at my passport, gave me and odd look but stamped it anyway and let me through. Was that legal? Oh well I'm in Malaysia now. I went and picked up my bag and collected my new connecting ticket and settled down for the 5 hour wait. Only problem was that Malaysians dont seem to like transit travellers and there wasnt any seats. I managed to drag a cuppacino out for 2 hours where I could sit and read my book. Soon I had to revert to sitting on my bag against a wall looking like a homeless man. I kept thinking that security would escort me out. With 2 hours to go I could go through to the gate lounge, where I munched on my donut dinner whilst sitting down. Ive never appreciated a plastic seat so much! Ironically I could buy a lot of 100ml+ bottles in the lounge with no more security checkpoints before the plane!
Arriving at the BSB (capital of brunei) airport I saw pa standing out in the crowd (hes so tall). He pointed me towards the visa on arrival desk as I was in the wrong line. I tried to get a single entry visa but had to follow dads pointing to the bank to get Brunei dollars to pay for it. Crazy system, usually its US dollars for visas. Parents were happy and I told mum that I did get through the Bangkok airport ok before she could ask. (She did ask me again later...). They were pretty jet lagged as it was a long flight losing a couple of hours in time zones, whereas I'd had a couple of short flights and wayyy too much coffee. We got the bus back to the Terrace hotel - an umbeleivable luxury compared to my previous hotel limits (the most i've spent is 10 bucks on a bungalo in the sunny island of Ko Samet). Didnt do much else apart from have a very poor street cafe meal - Malaysians cant compare with the Thais. And of course some comforting Aussie wine - Dad told me that Brunei is a dry country. Muslims dont appreciate beer! Wow. I was glad he told me after I boarded the flight, otherwise I might not have bothered to come.
It didnt feel like a spectacular reunion as we were tired and the conversation didnt go too deep into any of my adventures. But then again what was I going to tell them - I'd already told all my tales on this bloody blog!
