Bangkok...a short family trip, May 2016

Bangkok... a short family trip

I have been to Bangkok several times before

.... The first trip was in 2004 when I was working with KUB... There were 5 of us at that time, Hiruddin, his wife and son, and my wife Nana and I.

I kind of like Bangkok... not because of the sleazy entertainment that it is famous for... in fact Bangkok has a lot more to offer... shopping, cheap custom made suits and foot massage.... and of course the tom yam food...

This time I traveled with my wife Nana and our two sons, Umar and Luqman. They have been to many places before... Beijing, Jakarta, Bandung, Hat Yai, Turkey, Krabi and Seoul but this is their first trip to Bangkok. My two daughters Sob and Lekha couldn't join since they are now studying in universities and the term break is out of whack. It is not going to be easy to travel with the whole family anymore...sigh!...

I was looking for a window to take the family for holiday... need to balance between the work schedule and school break... haha... I was lucky when the company planned to go for a company trip to Beijing in late May 2016... I told Nana that instead of going to Beijing which we have been there before, might as well take the boys to somewhere they have never been before and somewhere that we like... and somewhere that is close by....not a 7 hours flight... both of us immediately agreed to go to Bangkok...

I immediately browse thru for hotel and flight....Nana wanted to stay in a serviced apartment so that all 4 of us can stay in one apartment...I did some online check and we decided to book thru Booking.com and chose to stay at Centre Point Sukhumvit Soi 10... the usual area that we stay when we go to Bangkok... On the airlines, after comparing MAS and AA, we decided to fly with MAS since the price difference is not that big... despite whatever people say, travelling with MAS is always more comfortable for me... orang melayu cakap tak banyak songeh.....

Nothing much to prepare since the weather in Bangkok is similar to us in KL... I only asked my brother in law Ramlan to change some Baht for us since he is now working for a money changer company... I asked him to change B25,000 which is about RM2850....

Our flight to Bangkok took off at about 6.00PM and we arrived in Bangkok around 7.00PM local time... even though it is a 2 hour flight since Bangkok is 1 hour behind Malaysian time... we felt kind of early but it was already dark then...clearing the immigration and custom were quite a breeze.... taking a taxi at Suvarnabhumi airport is very easy... just go to level 1 and proceed to the counter and press for a ticket...the number on the ticket shows the parking bay the taxi assigned to you...no waiting... no haggling... just tell the taxi driver where you want to go and he will press the meter...even better if you have a printed address in Thai since not many taxi drivers in Bangkok can converse in English....but they are always friendly and helpful... (sorry...can't say the same about Malaysian taxi drivers)...

We arrived at the hotel at around 8.30PM... as I suspected, the hotel is fully booked and they don't have a 2 rooms apartment. The hotel staff offered us 2 single rooms at different floors... No point arguing when the hotel is fully booked. We just took the rooms...Umar and Luqman took the 10th floor and we took the 16th floor... Out of the blue... suddenly one of the hotel staff start conversing with us in Malay... I was a bit surprised... he quickly explained that his real name is Abdul Hadi and

not Harry as printed on the name tag... he is from Southern Thai and studied English in Malaysia. In fact his brother in law is a lecturer at UTM...

I planned some itinerary before we left for Bangkok...some kind of plan what we want to do in Bangkok... the only place that Nana want to go is to visit the floating market... and for me is to make a few custom suits for myself... the rest nothing specific... just jalan-jalan cari makan...

After checking in, I asked the boys whether they want to go out for a quick meal...finding halal food around Sukhumvit is not that difficult... there many Muslim restaurants but mostly are middle eastern taste... Arabs' food... However both of them were dead tired...so only me and my wife went out for a quick bite. We also stopped by at 7Eleven to buy some bread and toiletries...

Walking back to the hotel...there were many street vendors plying their trade along the main street... we just stopped by and glanced at the stuff being sold there... most of them are clothes and souvenirs which you can find almost anywhere in Bangkok...we were dead tired and quickly headed back to our hotel...

Next morning feeling a lot fresher... we started early... since the hotel that we stayed don't serve halal food, we decided to go out and look for breakfast...it is not like in Krabi whereby almost all foods sold there are halal... We took a taxi and let the taxi driver find a halal restaurant for us.... after a quick turnaround...the taxi driver dropped us at an Egyptian restaurant....

We were politely greeted and stepped into the restaurant. Looking at the menu...I know I don't have any problem but I know my wife don't quite like middle eastern kind of food... the same thing happened when we went to Turkey... I really enjoy oven baked bread with cheese, honey, yogurt and of course milk tea... but since she knew it is not easy to find other foods in Bangkok then she just ordered some bread and hot lemon drinks.... I promised them to take to a good tom yam restaurant for lunch...

After breakfast, while walking back to the hotel, we were approached by a taxi driver. He was trying to sell some tourist package and quickly showed us a catalog. I told him that I want to go to floating market tomorrow. He told us the place is about 1 hour from Bangkok and he can take us there for B1000. I thot that kind of cheap and we agreed to use his taxi... we agreed to meet at our hotel again tomorrow at 8.00AM.

After breakfast, we went back to the hotel. I left my two sons there and soon after that me and my wife went out again. This time we went to the tailor shop to make my suit. In Bangkok, making a custom made suit is cheap and fast. There are many shops that around Sukhumvit and they have been in business for a very long time...  more than 20 years. I chose to go to a shop call Narry in

Sukhumvit Soi 11. I was greeted by a tailor by name of Rai... he is a Nepalese and has been working with Narry for over 20 years. After taking my measurement and agreed on the time for fitting, we went back to the hotel.

The next thing on the itinerary is to go MBK mall. MBK mall is one of the largest mall in Bangkok. Everything is sold there and there are many local as well as tourist there. We agreed to go there since there is halal tom yam restaurant called Yana. It is kind of easy... we can have lunch then only go for shopping...

When we arrived at Yana restaurant it was during lunch time... the place is pretty packed with locals and tourist like us... I think the group set next to us is from Indonesia looking by at their dress and language... The good thing is the waiter can speak Malay. That make the ordering of food easier... We ordered a few local dishes. The food and the service

were good and the price is reasonable.

After lunch I let my wife did her own shopping and me and the boys just walk around. We ended up at the place where all handphones gadgets are sold... we end up buying handphone car holder for my wife... nothing else.... Anyway all things that can be found in KL can be found in Bangkok and the prices are about the same... Tired of walking in the mall, we took a taxi and went back to the hotel...

I promised my family to go to Usman restaurant for dinner . We have been to Usman restaurant before during our earlier trip. The food and service were excellent and the price was reasonable too.... Usman Restaurant is on Soi 22 which is a bit of distance from our hotel. The best is to go by taxi...

After Mahgrib prayer, as planned we went out for dinner.... but the main road was jammed... at first I thought to walk to Usman restaurant but the humidity and too many people on the road made me changed the plan... instead of going to Usman, we went to Terminal 21... another shopping complex

in Sukhumvit... Terminal 21 is nearby and has a food court where there is one stall that sells halal food... Terminal 21 is sort of upmarket shopping complex. Mostly fashion items are sold there.

I didn't know that I need to buy a prepaid card to use at the food court. Only after we ordered our chicken rice that I knew we can only pay using the prepaid card. In fact to buy any food and drinks there must be paid using the prepaid card. If there is any balance after the meal, the balance can be refunded for cash... not a bad system after all... We had chicken rice, drinks and fruits... after that we all walked back to the hotel... again sweaty and tired....

On the way walking back to the hotel, both my wife and I stopped at the foot massage parlour for a foot massage. We let both our sons went back to the hotel by themselves. It is sort of a must do thing when you are in Bangkok to have a foot massage...

The next morning we had a simple breakfast in the hotel room... just bread and hot drinks...
As agreed, the taxi driver was already at the hotel by 7.45AM waiting for us at the lobby. We boarded the taxi and he drove us to the floating market... it was quite far since it took about 1 hour to reach the floating market... The taxi driver was quite chatty and we converse as much as we can.... he also showed us the largest salt mine along the way to the floating market...

We arrived at the floating market around 10.00AM and soon greeted by a local agent for the floating market trip.... Then I realised that we need to hire a boat to go for the sight seeing...No body told me about this before arriving here... I felt like being taken for ride when the agent started to show that the tour packages. Prices started from B1500 - B4500 per person depending whether you want for a simple package or together with riding elephants.... Realising that we were not prepared to pay for such a large amount, he showed us a basic package which is only B1000 per person. Once we paid the agent, he quickly introduced us to the boatman.... and he showed us to boat which is parked nearby... since he cannot converse in English, whole boat ride is just a site seeing... nothing much... The boat ride was about 1 hour... I didn't

enjoy as much but my wife kind of like it...

We left the place soon after that and headed back straight back to Bangkok... nothing much to see on the way back but my wife bought some fruits when the taxi stopped at the gas station to fill up... I told the taxi driver to drop us at Usman restaurant on Soi 22 instead at the hotel...

Usman restaurant is well known amongst Malaysian who regularly frequented Bangkok... when we

arrived there the were already a few Malaysians having their lunch there... luckily the place is not full and there is a table for us to sit... we ordered their tom yam speciality and had a good lunch...We went back to hotel for a rest after a good lunch....

We planned to go to Asiatique The Riverfront at night... Asiatique is a new attraction in Bangkok.... It is located along Chao Phraya river.... actually the place was an old wharf that has been converted into a nice shopping area... Abdul Hadi, the hotel receptionist told us to go there by skytrain instead of taking taxi... this is because the road going to Asiatique is always jam...

We left the hotel around 5.00PM and took the skytrain as advised. From our hotel we took the train from Nana station and has to change at Siam station. We need to embark at Saphan Taksin station and walk a bit to the river where a free shuttle boat will take us to Asiatique.


Well the crowd was huge... the queue to get to the boat was getting longer while waiting for the boat to

arrive... I guess there could be a few hundreds boarded the boat to Asiatique...we arrived around 6.00PM and the place is getting darker... quite nice scenery though but the heat and humidity really got to me....

Halal food wise, we were told there is no other halal stall in Asiatique except the one selling kebab... Once we found the stall, we all ordered what else...either chicken or beef kebabs... and ate at the bench around the tree nearby... well the kebab is not that tasty but we have not much choice...

We walked around for a bit... the place is nice for those who want to have a drink and listen to some local music performance... there was a live band performing but we can't appreciate much since we do not know much about Thai music scene... nothing much to buy or see since what can be found in MBK mall can also be found here... mostly tourist gift items.... we soon left back to out hotel... took the river boat and skytrain...a nice experience though but tiring....

On the last day... we have to check out at around 11.00AM since our flight back to KL is at 2.00PM. Nothing much to do in the morning.... so I took the boys to the swimming pool... I also planned to test

my new camera that I bought to replace the G1X that I drown in Romlon.... well the camera Olympus TG4 is good...the colour is nice underwater as well as the video.... Then I only need to buy the underwater housing when I want to go for my next scuba outing...

We had a sort of brunch...breakfast plus lunch in our room... what we did was we cooked instant noodle that we bought at 7Eleven earlier... Abdul Hadi told my wife that there is some food sold in 7Eleven... we only need to look for the halal logo...

I booked a taxi-van earlier from the front counter and the taxi was waiting for us at around 11.00AM... we get on the taxi and it took us about 45 minutes to reach the airport... again everything went on smoothly but since there are many passengers at the airport... everything seems to be rather slow...checked in, security clearance, passport control etc...we quickly look for surau at the airport for our zohor and asar jamak prayers... the surau is quite large and very clean too... well kept...

We soon make our way to the gate for boarding since not much time left before departure...while waiting at departure lounge to board suddenly I saw a person that I really recognised... it was Shah Sham...my old friend in MRSM Kulim...he was also my 4x100m team mate... we were in the team since I was in form 2 until form 5...the other team mates were Amir Hamzah and Ibrahim Bakri...

He was surprised to me and family there... He told me that he is now the captain for B737 series for MAS and fly regionally... He has been flying for more than 20 years with MAS and used to be the captain for B747 series but since MAS has no longer deploy B747s...he now flies 737... we chit chat for a while and not wanting to stop him from his work we shook hand and he quickly walked to the aircraft...

Shortly after that, I saw him again walking towards us... he told us there were 3 empty seats in the business class but there are 4 of us but actually on 2 seats are vacant since he does not want to disturb a VVIP.... well...lucky us...he upgraded our seats from economy to business...he asked whether I mind if I sit in the jump sit in the cockpit and my son sit in the economy... well I was very excited to be given the opportunity to sit in the jump sit... and Umar has no choice but sit in the economy all by himself...

Sitting in the jump seat is a privilege to me...not many people has this sort of opportunity...I thot after the 911 episode...passengers are not allowed to go the cockpit anymore... I felt really honoured when I was invited into the cockpit...the seat is small... and not the most comfortable...not much space between you and the two pilots... however this is the once in the life time experience...

Shahar Sham  introduced me to the first officer, Farid. Farid was rather young...late 20s or early 30s... Shahar Sham started to explain to me a lot of technical things about the aircraft and the communication that needs to be done between them and the control tower...everything must be done as told...

I was in the cockpit for 2 full hours... most of the time Shahar Sham explained to me about the aircraft and what pilots need to to do...during this time I saw most of the clicking and pushing of the

buttons and switches was done by Farid...Shahar just gave the instructions...finally when we arrived at KLIA, Shahar told Farid that he will take the control and land the aircraft...It was really a smooth landing....my wife always appreciate good nice landing.... I shook hands with both Shahar and Farid and thanked them for the once in the life time experience...




I will always remember this trip for a long long time...

Taman Melawati
May 2016

Romblon Adventure

Feb 2016

I got to know about Romblon from Man BD and Linn back in early 2015. They were the first Malays to have reached this place. Romblon is in the Philippines and it is one of the islands in the middle of the Philippines archipelago. Romblon is about 370 km from Manila and travelling to the place is rather challenging. Thus making this island unheard off to many and therefore preserved. The great thing about this place is that it offers rare macros that are unheard off before. To get there, I have to fly from KL to Manila and take a night ferry from Batangas to Romblon.

I planned to go to Romblon back in June 2015 after seeing all the beautiful photos on Man’s and

Linn’s Facebooks. I have seen a rare nudibranch called malibe colimani in Komodo before but I was told that they are plenty here. Also butterfly nudi and many more that I have not seen before…. That makes this trip more exciting. However, it is not easy to reach Romblon and it has to be a at least one-week trip…. This is going to be difficult for me since I cannot easily take long leave.

As promised, Man published the details for the trip. It was during the Chinese New Year of 2016. Considering long public holidays, I only have to take 2 days off if I flew back from Romblon instead of taking the night ferry back to Batangas and Manila.

I did not do a lot of preparation for this trip since I already have a complete equipment by now except that most of the gears are for beginners...I bought the equipment when I did my open water course. Anyway Linn told me that in Romblon has no strong current, water temperature between 28C to 30C and most dives are shallow dives… less than 10 meters. That is good for macro photographers since there will plenty of natural lights and the gas tank will definitely last longer…. may be up to 1.5 hours. I am really looking forward to get good shots of all the rare little creatures that made Romblon famous… at least for the divers…

The group going to Romblon this time is rather small…. There are only 5 of us. Man and Linn, Dr

Hairul and his wife, Anis and myself. I have never met Hairul and Anis before. Our trip was from 5 Feb to 10 Feb. However, Man and Linn will stay back since there is another group of 11 who will join after we left. Since there is no Muslim food, I bought packed Brahim’s food and Maggie instant noodle to last me for 5 days. I will make the best of the local food whenever I can.

Two weeks before we departed, Man told me there is a slight change of plan… the ferry that will take us to Romblon is now out of service for maintenance. We have to take another ferry to Tablas island and from there take another boat to Romblon.

The dive center and resort in Romblon island is called 3P which is operated by three brothers….  Peter, Patrick and Phillip…. and they are Germans. Man and Linn told me that they are good guides, helpful and friendly. I have met a few Germans and have been to Germany before …. most are very straight forward and very disciplined. I was a bit skeptical about these German guides…..

I met Hairul and Anis at KLIA2 on the departure date…. They seemed like a nice young couple… Hairul is a UK trained doctor teaching at USM Kubang Kerian in medicine. Even though there were many people at KLIA2 especially nearing the CNY holidays, but checking in was rather smooth. We departed on time and reached Manila on scheduled at around noon. After the usual immigration and custom clearance…. we met a van driver who was supposed to

take us from Manila to Batangas. Since the ferry was scheduled to depart at 9.00 pm, we went for a quick sight seeing around Manila. We went to the place called Tagaytay… nothing much there but just to see the old volcano craters… We left for Batangas after taking a few photos….

The traffic around Manila was terrible… even though there are tolled roads but the jam is like permanent… It is advisable for people going to Manila airport to allow additional 2-3 hours for the traffic jam… Anyway we arrived at Batangas around 6.00pm but since there was a bit of time before departure to Tablas, we went for a quick dinner at a nearby McDonalds… hehe...everyone ordered fillet-o-fish… After dinner we went to Batangas jetty where Phillip was also joining us back to Romblon… Actually he just arrived from Germany earlier in the day….

When the van stopped at the entrance of the Batangas jetty, a few men rushed to the van…. actually they were porters who were eager to carry our luggage.… more of pity rather than need to hire them… Man decided to get the porters to carry our luggage… only for a short distance… up to the waiting area which was less than 50m … only then we realized that they are not licensed porters… we paid them P50 per bag for the job and now have to get another licensed porter to carry our luggage through the security clearance and up to our cabin in the ferry…

The ferry taking us to Tablas is operated by 2Go… the ferry actually is a ship which can carry both passengers and vehicles… We were supposed to depart at 9.00 pm and arrived in Tablas at 5.00 am… but we were told that the ferry arrival is now delayed…. the new departure time is now at

10.00pm...another long wait…. I am fully prepared for the change in plan and timing… This sort of travelling, one cannot expect punctuality to the minute… One has to be prepared to change plan all the times… Finally, the ferry arrived at 10.30 pm… by then we knew that we are going to miss the connecting ferry from Tablas to Romblon which was scheduled to leave at 6.00 am… Phillip was a bit edgy since he was still having jet lagged and cannot think straight… but still managed to give a nice smile though….

There was a bit of chaos when we were informed to board the ferry… before we can board the ferry we were told to line up for another security clearance… this time the port police brought dogs to ensure no prohibited items are carried into the ferry… Once cleared then only we were allowed to board the ferry… The ferry is divided into 3 classes… open aircond cabin, open non-aircond cabin and 4 bedded cabin with private toilet. We booked into the 4 bedded cabin where Man, Linn, Phillip and myself were in one cabin while Hairul and wife were in the other cabin… Man paid the porter quite handsomely I supposed since he gave Man a nice big smile… the ferry finally departed at around 12.00 am… everyone was too tired after a long journey…. we all dozed off soon after that….

I woke up at around 5.00 am and by that time I can already see Tablas island …. But it was still quite far though… I took the opportunity to walk around the ferry for a while… we were only scheduled to berth at around 7.30 am and by then we would have missed the connecting ferry to Romblon anyway…. Phillip quickly made another arrangement to get another boat to take us to Romblon… He wouldn't want to wait for another scheduled ferry to Romblon leaving at 12.00pm. However, we have to take a van from the Odiongan jetty which is on the west side of Tablas to San Antonio jetty which is on the east side of the island. The journey along the coastal road took one hour...

When we arrived at San Antonio jetty we were told to wait in the van… the porters here are crazy… they rushed upon seeing our van … After a short discussion between Phillip and the porters…they carried all our luggage into the boat…no problem…. Soon after the boat sailed to Romblon which is not very far…about one-hour slow boat ride….

I was so happy to see Romblon… blue sky…sunny day and calm waters… In my mind… this will be an easy dive site with plenty of rare and beautiful creatures… most muck divers will want easy shallow dives… haha…we can spend 1.5 hours underwater… no problemo…

At the Romblon jetty things were different…. There was no haggling with the porters since Phillip knew them all… our luggage was loaded into the tut-tuts and we were at the 3P resort and dive center in 10 minutes after arriving in Romblon…

Romblon island reminds me of my kampong when I was small… back in the 70s… the houses were small and simple…lots of trees and very green… here many houses are built using bamboo… Shortly after arrival, I was given a cottage…  all by myself… apart from the 5 of us there was another diver, a girl by the name of Christina who is a Taiwanese American working in Singapore…. She arrived a day earlier than us…

As soon as I finished unpack and had a quick lunch… we were ready to go for our first dive…the guide was Patrick, the number 2 brother who Linn called Mr. No Problem…. His answer to every request is “no problem” … which is not the case most of the time…. Today we planned to do 2 dives…. As usual the first dive will be deeper than the second…

One thing that I found is that there many similarities between the islands of Romblon in Philippines and Lombok in Indonesia. The boats are very similar and if I am not mistaken, the materials used as the balancing poles are also the same…. The same about the bamboo houses and the way the petrol is sold in the bottles along the roadside…. Or may be just a coincidence…. Oh ...I don’t know…  

The clear blue sky that greeted us in the morning when we first stepped our foot on the island has suddenly disappeared. On the way walking to the boat, the clouds started to thicken…. No more sunshine…. The calm sea that we saw earlier has now turned choppy…. I now realized that all the promises Linn made earlier was now fast disappearing…. It was not going to be an easy dive anymore.…but dive we must…. The hunt must go on….

The moment the water touches my face ... I knew it is going to be a tough dive ... it was chilly… it was 26C… That is not warm for me…. I know the temperature can drop lower once we go deeper to 18 – 20 meters…. True enough the water was cold 25C at the sandy bottom around 20 meters… As usual my first dive after a long break always suck… I have to get back the buoyancy…. equalizing the ear…. understanding the current and most important of all to get to know how the other divers behave…. We don’t get much to see on the first dive and after around 60 minutes we surfaced and went to have a break at place called Marlin Bar…. I had a hot chocolate to warm up my cold body…

The second dive was much better… it was a shallow dive.… less than 10 meters deep…at this depth… my gas can last longer…easily 1.5 hours…. but the cold waters will be a problem… anyway as soon as reached the bottom…. Patrick showed us the nudibranch that everyone was looking for…. The malibe colemani…. The same one that I saw in Komodo except that they are plenty here… after that I saw many other small creatures that I have not seen before… wonderful… Thanks Allah for showing me all your beautiful creations… True enough… we spent 1.5 hours underwater… that is because the cold waters really got to me…. If not I would have stayed a bit longer down there….

I did 9 dives including one night dive where Kathy, Phillip’s girlfriend was the guide…. Kathy is a good guide…. She knows where to find the animals…. She knows the habitat of the animal at different depth… not only that, she can tell the scientific name of the animal… amazing knowledge!!!… She showed me many creatures… it was a very enjoyable night dive…. Before, I used to be very afraid of night dive but anymore…. In fact, I like night dive better now since there are more animals and creatures to see….

However, I was quite unfortunate…. I flooded my Canon G1X camera after the 5^th dive…. Must be that I didn’t close the housing properly after changing the battery… that usually happens to divers…. Peter the eldest brother asked me why it took so long for me to surface after knowing there was a leakage… only that I did not know the tell tale of a flooding housing… If I knew I would have surfaced earlier…. After so many years and dives…. The camera is now RIP….kaput….

I did’t feel like continuing diving after that…. Not much to do down there if I don’t have a camera with me…. At night during dinner I told Man and Linn that I did not feel like diving anymore… but Man was more positive than me… he suggested that I rent a camera from the dive centre….only to get the straight answer from Kathy…. No…they did not rent cameras…. How unfortunate… However, Man asked Phillip if he can lend the Olympus TG4 housing since Man can let me use his TG3 camera…. Wow!!!... I was happy again that I have a camera now… not only that, TG3 is really a simple camera… really just point and shoot…. I took quite some photos with the camera… of course I need more time with Olympus TG before I can master the camera but at least I can shoot my own photos now…

Throughout the 9 dives that we did, the sun never really shows its face… in fact we went diving in the rain…. The first in my diving life…. Never before I went out for a dive in the rain… The water was cold all the time…. Lowest was 24C… but much warmer compared to the dive trip in Bali back in August 15…. The water was only 19C… I did not write a single paragraph about the dive trip there since there was nothing exciting about the Bali dive trip….

After staying at 3P dive centre for 4 nights… it was time to go back home… Christina, Hairol Anis and me went back… Man and Linn have to stay back since there is another group of 11 who will arrive on Saturday… for Man and Linn, this was their longest dive trip… almost 12 days straight in total…The day before we left, all of us went to Romblon town in the afternoon for a quick sight seeing… again the sun never showed up… instead this time it was raining rather heavily…

Romblon island is not developed yet… in fact everything is basic… internet is poor, muslim food is  not available, public transport is only by tut-tut… not many cars on the road…. In fact, there is not many roads on the island. However, Romblon is famous for their marble industry……

Going back was shorter since I am flying out from Tablas to Manila…. However, I have to face the same challenge… the flight scheduled to leave at 12.50 pm from Tablas was delayed by 50 minutes… we were told that the approval to depart was not granted since Manila airport is congested…. I was worried that I could miss my connecting flight to KL… Again after arriving in Manila… my flight back to Kuala Lumpur was delayed by 1 hour since we did not get the clearance to take off…The aircraft was holding on the tarmac for almost 30 minutes waiting for others to land… However, by now I am used to this sort of thing… no point rushing if it is not safe…. I am sure everyone did their best….

I finally arrived at the KLIA2 at 9.30pm….what an experience!!!

Shahar

10 Feb 2016