Thursday, Mar. 2, 2017 – Another Day, Another Country! But Only After the Flight from Hell

After getting to sleep slightly longer than usual, but much more deeply as this bed was SO comfortable, we got up and packed and took the super shuttle to the airport, where our plan was to get breakfast. Unfortunately, we had ordered an Indian meal for delivery to the hotel last night, which was delicious, but it must have had more sodium in it that it tasted, and Hubby is quite out of breath this morning, so he's having to move very slowly. The Sydney Airport is huge, and we had a LONG walk through the international terminal, to the very last gate, naturally. He refused to eat anything (which I predicted was a mistake, and, of course, later he regretted it), but he just didn't want to take any chances on ingesting more sodium and making his breathing worse, so I had a nosh from Starbucks and he just had coffee. Then our flight departure was delayed by half an hour. Then we finally boarded onto an AirAsia plane. I had researched them when I was looking for flights to Hong Kong, and had decided to go with Malindo air instead, but because of the last minute change in plans, we had no choice for this leg but AirAsia. NEVER AGAIN! We had paid extra for the Quiet Zone, which I'm very glad we did, because it only had a half a dozen people in an area made for over 40, so we were able to spread out and take entire rows to ourselves. But that was the ONLY good thing about this 8.5 hour flight. The attendants practically ignored us the entire flight, except when they were trying to sell us something. We had pre-ordered a meal, the only one from the menu that seemed half-way healthy for Hubby, but it was the size of a Lean Cuisine, NO WAY that was going to last for the entire flight. Everything, and I mean EVERYTHING else on the menu was horrible. I asked for nutritional information, and after 15 minutes I was handed a sheet that listed ingredients and allergens, not one word about sodium, calories or anything else, and half the stuff on the menu wasn't even on it. Practically everything had soy sauce in it. When I finally chose the least of the evils for Hubby, I was promptly told they were out of it. In fact, they were out of everything except two of the worst offenders. We were forced to buy horrible dinners, Hubby's came out cold, mine came out 10 minutes later overcooked, it was horrible. He was miserable. We both did manage to get a little sleep, but it was a terrible flight. We got the impression that the customers were an imposition on the flight crew, really awful customer service. Can't say enough about how bad it was. Never again! We finally arrived an hour late (because we sat for another half hour on the tarmac, even though the plane was fully boarded in about 10 minutes), cleared immigration and customs, then I followed the instructions I received from the car rental company to call when we arrived at KLIA2 (one of two terminals at Kuala Lumpur) and someone would come pick us up and take us to KLIA1 to get the car. At first there was no answer, then I finally got someone who didn't seem to know what I was talking about, but eventually understood what I was asking, then he had to call me a couple of times to determine where we were (even though I was pretty clear on it), until finally he found us. We dragged our luggage around to the street and got loaded up, then drove to KLIA1 to finish the paperwork, one time running a stop sign and pulling into traffic that scared the heck out of me for a second. Despite my plans to get the car and be at the hotel before dark, all the delays now had dusk coming in a hurry. We finished the paperwork (which was very little compared to a US rental) and took the same car out on the road, following the GPS map I had downloaded to my phone. We managed to arrived at the Everly Putrajaya in about 30 minutes, though it was dark by the time we got there. Not my favorite thing, driving in the dark in a strange country, but we managed it. I walked into a large, airy, and well-light lobby, managed to get checked into the hotel with no problems. I left the luggage with Hubby and the bellman, drove the car underground to the garage, then we went up to the room, which wasn't bad, but had a very musty smell to it. The bellman inserted a room key into a slot next to the door inside, which I learned activated the electricity in the room, something that is common here. We put on the AC in hopes of quelling the musty smell, but it was still there when we got back from dinner. We headed immediately down to the restaurant, where Hubby had a nice green salad with salmon, the first meal he's enjoyed all day, while I just had a fruit plate. We both were exhausted, and despite the musty smell in the room (I was too tired to complain about it and move rooms) and fell into bed shortly afterward.

Speak Your Mind

*