MY SABAH ROAD TRIP WAS ABOUT TO BEGIN

The first leg of my Sabah Road Trip was to get to Kuala Lumpur International Airport from Johor Bahru to Labuan. To do that, I took the YoYo Express Bus at Larkin Sentral on 23rd February at 11:45 p.m. The bus took me directly to Terminal 1 of the Airport, and arrived at the wee hour of the morning, at about 4:30 a.m. on 24th February. The very last time I was here was one day before the Movement Control Order [MCO] was implemented when C19 hit hard, back in March 2020.

Then I had to wait for my flight to Labuan at 8:00 a.m. so I had a lot of time to kill. What else to do then to get something to eat. In my hunt for something light to eat at dawn, I settled for toast [but later opted for steamed bread], half boiled eggs and coffee at Ya Kun Kaya Toast. A simple traditional breakfast could now be commercialized and we have to pay much more for it, especially when it is located in the airport building.

I was lucky to get to fly with Malaysia Airlines [MAS] this time as I managed to buy my ticket when there was a special offer. Unfortunately, I could not fly back with the same airline as the time was not suitable so this was just a one way trip with MAS.

With RM200, I got my in-flight meal and entertainment, plus the 20 kg of baggage.

I met a friendly young man from Kundasang who is studying in UPSI and the whole 2 1/2 hours trip was a sleepless one as we chatted all the way.

It was time to continue with the next leg of the journey as I had to meet with my travel companion cum driver cum guide.

[MY SABAH ROAD TRIP MAIN PAGE]

A SURPRISING RENDEZVOUS HIGH UP IN THE SKY

12TH MARCH 2016 ~ I was on MAS MH764 Kuala Lumpur-Siem Reap route for my short getaway school holiday trip. At one moment, I was telling my travel companion sitting beside me that I actually have two ex-students working as air-stewardesses. However, I had never had any chance of meeting them during any of my plane rides. And in about 5 minutes, a stewardess approached me and asked, "Cikgu Zainal?"

Surprise... surprise... I guess God must have heard me clearer when I was up there. There she was, Miss Maria Slamat, an ex-student of SMK Taman Universiti from SPM batch 1999. I was a very lucky teacher that day to have the opportunity to meet an ex-student after all these years. She said she saw me but had to check the passengers' name list just to be sure she had the right person.

That is one moment I would always cherish and I will have to keep telling myself, being a teacher is not that bad after all.

Thanks Maria for saying "hi" and I was happier that I was handed over a bagful of "door gift" before leaving the plane. Hopefully we will meet each other again some other time. I pray that one day you will be promoted to become the head stewardess of the ship so you could upgrade me to the business class when you see me some other time. Well, you never know, life is always full of surprises.

MY AUSSIE TRIP: SO HERE THE STORY GOES...

1st June: Travelling Time

The travel started on the 1st of June from JB to KL Sentral on train. Then, I took the ERL to KLIA for my MAS flight which departed at about 10:30 pm. Nothing much exciting especially when I had shorter time to sleep in between dinner at midnight and breakfast a few hours after that.

fish for me?

Dinner consisted of garoupa fish, Hwa Tai crackers, butter, a bun and sardine but NO RICE. So I made my own conclusion that the crackers had to be eaten with the sardine, like a sandwich. So as you can see my dinner was real fishy but luckily the orange juice was sour enough to wash the food down my throat. 

continental breakfast

And not long after that, breakfast was served. Continental but simple, muffins and yogurt, still too western for me. That Ferero Roche chocolate actually was the leftover after dinner. And I could not sleep a wink until the plane landed safely at Kingsford Smith Airport in Sydney.