Tue 12th Jan - After making a valiant attempt to get my blogs up to date
on the web, it was time to leave for the airport. I took one of the taxis waiting outside of the hotel. Cost 50 Dirhams to
the Airport. The route there goes past some
striking architecture...the Emirates Mall; the Pyramid shaped hotel thingy;
some other tall fancy design thingys. The airport itself if a masterpiece. The
new Emirates airline terminal is sleek with its stainless steel and blue glass
design. I am boarding Air Malaysia, which like all other international flights
departs from Terminal 1. A while to go until the check-in opened, so people
watched for a bit. Quick passage through check-in and then had a little
disagreement with deartures section security scanning. Considering my guitar
had already travelled through Manchester, Paris, Estonia and Dubai scanners on
entry, they confiscated a couple of small tools inside of the case's small
items section. I argued that it was going in the hold anyway, but would they
have it...nope...got really frustrated with them, but you know you cannot win,
so had to condede defeat and had to lose a precious little wrench and my nifty
little guitar string cutters....damned regulations...and more to the
point....the officials!
Departures
is full of the sort of shops you would expect of Dubai....aimed at the wealthy
folk who haven't spent enough already in the Malls. I think it makes a joke of
the baggage limits...Malaysia airlines for example have plenty of signs showing
that their carry-on limit is 5kg maximum (others vary from 5kg to the more
usual 10kg), and as normal, has to fit into this tiny little space they have to
one side. They made no attempt to check my 10kg that I was carrying which was
twice the size of the little box, plus the near 5kg guitar in its case. And to
top it off...once you get through to departures....you could add 20kg for
example of purchased items. So why do they bother setting a limit? One guy had
bought a model helicopter in an enormous box. So where was he going to stick
that? It was that big he could have flown it home as a passenger. Any answers
out there....please elucidate this rather grey area of carry-on luggage!
Departures
also includes the opportunity to enter a draw for 500 Dirhams to win a top of
the range car or two. Was tempted...but decided to eat instead. After all, what
would I do with it? And if I won it, could I get it through baggage allowance
without a hefty excess luggage charge? The food court is nice quality. Settled
on my favourite food of all time, a spicy Thai Penang curry...yummee..
Currency
exchange close to the departure gate gave me a rate of 0.08965 to change what
Dirhams I had left into Philippine Pesos. Also took the opportunity to get rid
off all the leftover coins from other currencies I had. Made my travel wallet a
lot lighter too.
A
smooth take-off in the dark at 6:55pm for the 6hr 55 minute flight aboard MH157
(a nice Airbus A330 wide bodied plane). Dubai is beautiful at night with a
blanket of lights spreading out in every direction and the Burj al Khalifa
sticking out of the technicolour carpet in dramatic fashion.
On
a different subject...For those frequent flyers out there like myself....do you
ever wonder what use the whistle is on that flimsy life jacket they so
carefully show you in the safety demonstration! Picture yourself bobbing up and
down in the 10 metre high waves in the middle of some vast ocean after your
mega tonne flying carpet has crash landed in it....there you are puffing like
crazy to re-fill that pathetic life jacket, maybe thousands of miles from
anywhere and you are going to blow that eentsie weentsie little whistle and
rescue will appear from nowhere! Don't let me put you off flying by the way.
I
enjoyed a couple of glasses of red wine to wash down the rather nice chicken
biriani they served for dinner. Helped make my eyelids a little heavier whilst
reading a good book by the Scotman Billy Connolly...World tour of Australia.
Had saved it for this flight as I haven't had any other time recently to read
for a long period of time. I remember watching the TV series on TV many years
ago. I picked the book up in a charity shop in Southport (UK) for a silly
price.
As
usual I can never sleep on a plane, so read for a bit, and rested for a bit. My
head was throbbing by the time we arrived at KLIA (Kuala Lumpur International
Airport) at 6:10am. 24 degrees C ground temperature and still dark outside.
My
next flight is MH704 to Manila departing at 10:15am. It hadn't been added to
the departures board yet, so had to lose some time until I knew where the
boarding gate was. 3 hours or so to lose...KLIA is excellent in being really
stylish. Now where else would you find a tropical rainforest? Yep..they got one
in the 'KLIA Jungle Boardwalk'. Humid, dark, waterfall, chirping birds....got
it all! The curvaceous central area has what I can only describe as large
sectioned bowling pins as part of the design. Every big name seems to be here,
including Harrods of London. At this time of the morning it seems strange to
see staff doing a stock taking exercise. Do these shops really sell that much,
that they need to check what they have sold?
There
are a few free internet terminals around (Sponsored by Samsung) which allow
checking of e-mail, but no chat services, so sending messages didn't work,
which is the only thing I wanted to do. Free, so cannot complain.
A
thought had occurred to me whilst I was sat in the Coffee Bean having some
breakfast...when I had boarded the Malaysia Air flight at Dubai, I was not
asked if I had an onward flight from Manila. Why have I mentioned this you may
ask...well, in ALL previous occasions that I have entered the Philippines using
Cebu Pacific Airlines, they have insisted on seeing my onward flight details
before allowing me to check in to the flight. They insist that it is part of
Philippine immigration law that they have to check. No onward flight, then not
allowed to board. So why wasn't I asked this time? As it happens, I do have an
onward flight booked to Japan on March 2nd, but I don't have the voucher
printed off; it is on my laptop though. Will it be a problem? I hope not. From
past experience I have never been asked when going through immigration passport
control in Manila to show any form of flight booking. Confusing eh!
The
break between flights allowed for a good freshen up and a change of clothes.
These sort of journeys wipe me out. Nearly 11 hours of flight plus the time
before, during and after, plus a time shift to GMT+8, mean a very long day. My
beard grows and start to look Neanderthal and I had bags under my eyes through
lack of sleep. And at the other end there will be the mayhem of Manila and
catching buses to contend with.
Flight
MH704 took off on time at 10:15am, with breakfast served soon afterwards.
Choice of Malaysian dishes, so had spicy curry and dosas for a change, washed
down with a couple of glasses of red wine again. Getting into this service. I
was lucky to be sat with a friendly experienced expat working as manager for a
top hotel chain in Manila (cannot mention the name). He was also responsible
for three other hotels in the same group and had been in Cambodia, Indonesia,
Malaysia with the same group. 17 years in total. So it was an interesting
conversation exchanging experiences on each country. Obviously, my experiences
were from a completely different perspective not being in the hotel management
business....and being a poor traveler of course!
It
was obvious from our discussions, that whilst he had lived in those countries,
he had never really seen them...all work and no play! I had seen more in months
that he had seen in years.
We
touched down in Manila at 1:45pm, 20 minutes ahead of schedule. Ground
temperature was 30 degrees C.
