Long day

Leaving hometown

Today I fly from Kuching to Dhaka via KL, with a 9h25 self-connect.  The trip wasn’t planned in one hit but somewhat piecemeal making use of expiring points for the domestic portion and crazily cheap international tickets to the subcontinent that were cheaper than staff prices!

I woke at 0520 and left for the airport at 0600, together with my brother, from whom I had borrowed the car.  He often leaves at 0530 for breakfast to avoid traffic.

Despite a wrong turn due to road changes, I got to the airport at 0640.  I had been confused by the route as it was just nothingness with a blocked-off junction the last time I took it.

My app check-in for the Malaysia Airlines 1025 flight to KL did not generate a boarding pass.  I was about 3h40 early and there was no queue for the lone human at the counter, and she gave me an exit row seat.

I have a long stay in the lounge but that went quickly until the uneventful flight to KL onboard on a B737-800 that had missed two rounds of refurbishment.

Long self-connect

Landing at 1200 without luggage, I was landside in no time.  I decided to use my bank perk to have 3h in a sleep capsule in the landside area of the departure level.

With the early wake-up, the rest was welcome and I may have dozed slightly but didn’t sleep.  That killed time till 1515.

I felt like a cheap (MYR5.50) iced latte from Mixue at T2, which I reached using the free shuttle bus.  To my disappointment, they were out of stock for all such drinks.

It wasn’t a wasted effort as I caught a Chinese New Year lion dance performance at the capsule hotel in the arrival hall, of all places.  I’d be very pissed off if I had just settled in for a sleep there after a long flight.  Quite unusually for Peninsular Malaysia, some of the performers don’t look Chinese at all (whereas in Sarawak, most performers are native Malaysians).

I had often seen the free shuttles to the Mitsui Outlet Mall near the airport.  With more time to kill, I finally made it there.  While there were lots of outlets, nothing grabbed me and I left empty-handed after about an hour.

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Back at T1 around 1700, I went airside to the Plaza Premium lounge.  The food was of very good quality, but the place was just too busy for proper relaxation.

After about 3h there, I went to my boarding gate around 2040. It was a little chaotic when the gate opened for security screening and I accidentally made my way to near the front.  Ooopsie!

The security staff shouted and growled at the Bangladeshi passengers, who were predominantly labourers.  The crew arrived in politely cut into the queue, as they’re meant to.

The adjacent gate was for Chengdu Tianfu and my face looked like I should have been in that queue. I made that remark to the gate staff, and they laughed and asked me what I would be doing in Bangladesh.

Boarding was surprisingly unchaotic.  Due to the language barrier, most of the Bangladeshis had missed their boarding group and joined my group, the last one.  Fortunately, I was in the front of the group.

Flying to Dhaka

The crew on the flight were awesome.  Really obliging, respectful and cheerful to a customer profile that is largely seen as labourers.  Mixed in between them were doctors and well-heeled people but it wasn’t always possible to know.  E.g. the bearded old man in traditional clothes next to me was a doctor.

There were a few spare rows in the aft area but as I had ordered a Chef-on-Call meal, I stayed put.  As it turned out, the standard meals looked better than my chicken satay with fried rice.