The Long Way Home - Part 1

Finally, here’s a summary of our recent trip home to Malaysia in July 2022. This was our first Malaysia trip since 2019, before the pandemic. Lots of changes happened in the 3 years since we last visited. So many of our family and friends have left our world, for a better world.😢 These 3 years had been a hard time for many. I hope the times to come are better. 🙏


Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport, Dhaka, Bangladesh

Anyway, for this one home trip, we took 11 flights, through 11 different airports, on 7 different airlines, in 7 different countries. And all this, just because of the blasted airfares! (And some cool holidays on the way, ahem!) We’ve guessed from the start that the airfares for the trip back home would be high. (After all, this was the first summer break in the UAE since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic which people could travel without the strict COVID-19 restrictions. Plus, my leave coincided with the end of the school year, and the start of the long weekend Eid Al-Adha holidays!) But we never imagined that the tickets would be ...nothing less than an Extortion! - C'mon, 4 FRIGGIN TIMES the pre-COVID rates!?!! You can thank the airlines companies for this. I could almost hear their evil sniggering... “Now's the time for recouping our losses for the past few years, hahaha.”

6,000 friggin dirhams for ONE measly passenger to get to Penang and back!?! That’s close to what we paid for the ENTIRE FAMILY OF 4 prior to COVID! (It was 7K+ I remember for 4 of us – direct flight from Sharjah to KL, then train to Butterworth, and returning by flight from Penang to KL, then KL to Dubai via Brunei). 6K per person would cost us AED 24K!!! (We flew all the way to NZ and back in 2018 with less than that - 20K, and that was on a Cathay Pacific flight!). No way we’re gonna let the airlines do that. The only problem is that there’re very little choices to this. Normally, what we’ll do to overcome this, is to get the flights with a stop, or 2 in between. That usually brings down the price, but this time round, even the flights with stops are friggin over the top. I tried looking for flights to India (there’re scores of low-cost airlines flying between the UAE and India, plus we have lifetime Indian visas, hehe) and getting an Air Asia from India back to Malaysia, to bring down the costs. Heck, the Indian tickets’ airfares (even the low-cost ones) are as high as as the Malaysian ones! If not more!! There’re no Chinese airlines to choose from this time round to bring down the costs, due to China’s ridiculous Zero-COVID strategy (c’mon, the entire world has opened up. What’re you waiting for?) There’re no Saudi stops due to the Haj. There’s a flight with a stop in Sri Lanka for nearly a day, but we don’t fancy participating in the Colombo riots, or being stuck in Sri Lanka with no fuel to get anywhere else. Oh, what about Bangladesh then, sez the missus??

Oh yeah, why not, indeed? (And we can visit a country we’ve never been before, wink! That’s why I love the missus so much!) Oh, here’s one option – Salamair (Oman’s low-cost airlines) has flights to Dhaka for AED 2,300 for the 4 of us! Great! Now, let’s see, there’s Air Asia from Dhaka to KL, or we could fly Biman, Bangladesh’s National Airlines, for only a little more, plus the timing’s better. Alright, that’s done then, Dubai to Dhaka with a stopover in Muscat, Oman. 2 nights in Dhaka, then a flight from Dhaka to Kuala Lumpur! Returning would be using a Scoot flight from Penang to Singapore, with a 2-night stopover to spend some time with Jason and family, then a Vistara flight back to Dubai transiting Mumbai! Less than 10K! OK, that’s the best option so far.

So, we got our Bangladeshi visas, we checked and arranged for all the friggin health apps, declarations, what you have… Then came the bombshell. Salamair cancelled our flight! ONE WEEK from the day of the flight! So, we had a mad scramble to find an alternative flight to Bangladesh! Shit, all the flights are even more expensive now! The cheapest tickets from anywhere in the UAE one way to Dhaka is now 8K (for 4 of us) on the same day (and on some crummy low-cost airlines)!! There’re no more Salamair flights to Dhaka until at least 5 days after our original flight date! Hey wait, the flights from the UAE to Kathmandu, Nepal are still reasonable (it’s the monsoon season, not a high season for Nepal, plus Nepal doesn’t celebrate Eid). And flights from Kathmandu to Dhaka are not too bad. No time to waste then, let’s grab it – Kuwait’s low-cost airlines Jazeera Airways from Dubai to Kathmandu, transiting Kuwait. Then, in Kathmandu, we have a 5-hour window to do our transfers for catching a Biman flight to Dhaka. Done then, all booked and ready to go for 4.8K. We have an extra country to get visas, and health declarations, but it's better than paying 3K+ extra. And so, we started our journey…


Jazeera’s flight from Dubai to Kuwait was delayed by an hour. Now big deal, since anyway, we have a 5.5 hours’ wait in Kuwait, till our flight to Nepal. That’ll reduce it to 4.5 hours. No problem. (But little did we know at that time what Jazeera is famous notorious for – delays!)


And here we are, Terminal 5 of Kuwait’s International Airport, reserved specially for Jazeera Airways. “Our new Jazeera terminal at Kuwait Airport has been designed to enhance your travel experience. Complete with self-service kiosks, parking facilities & more. T5 features a dedicated Customer Service team, self-service kiosks, duty free, dining outlets, complimentary Wi Fi at each gate and more. Our new gateway for Kuwait will make your journey easier and more enjoyable.” The truth can’t be further. If you don’t believe me, go try it yourself.

We were only there for ummmm… 8 friggin hours. Our flight to Kathmandu from Kuwait, was delayed by 4 F#*$in HOURS! The terminal has One Costa Café. One Indian tea and sandwich shop. One Duty Free Shop. One toilet. And like one seat for every 5 passengers! We were lucky we got there early and glued ourselves to some seats near some power sockets (hey, you think our phones are gonna last 8 friggin hours, when it’s about the only entertainment you get?!?) Or we would have to sit on the floor like many other travelers. Also luckily, I brought a book. Many have called it the worst airport, IN THE WORLD. And many have declared that they’d never fly Jazeera. Ever again. (Not us... we may have no choice...)




This is the result of the 4-hour Jazeera flight delay - a day off in Kathmandu, Nepal. Here's the view from our hotel, Hotel Moonlight. The temple on the hill in the photo above is the famous Swayambhunath Temple (which we visited way back in ummm 2010). Thanks to Jazeera’s delay, we bloody missed our connecting flight from Kathmandu to Dhaka, despite our mad rush. We cleared Nepal immigration in record time (I think like 15 minutes), by persuading everyone to let us go first, but then we had to wait for the bloody luggage, which took only about an hour to come out. Thanks also to Jazeera, I had an intense workout pushing the damn luggage trolley up the damn ramp from the Arrival Terminal to Departure Terminal of Kathmandu’s Tribhuvan Airport. By the time we got to the check-in counter of our flight out of Kathmandu, I was red and sweating profusely. And the counter had closed, with no one in sight. (Hey people! Where are you? We reached there 5 minutes before the flight time!) We spent the next hour or two roaming around the airport looking for some, any Biman Airlines staff to assist. Finally, some staff came back (there were all assisting the flight take off), and the lovely missus smooth-talked some officers into helping us get the next flight to Bangladesh (on the next day), for just a cancellation and rebooking fee of USD 40 per person. Whew!


Nah, here’s another view of Nepal – Nagarkot, a hill station near Kathmandu

Finally, Bangladesh. Thanks again to Jazeera, we had to cut short our Dhaka stay from 2 nights, to only one night. Luckily, the hotel (Raintree Dhaka), had a free cancellation policy of up to the day of arrival, and they graciously accepted our cancellation request, without any charges. Kudos to Mr Suman Dey, the manager!


Guess where this is?! China? India? Nah, this is Hob Nob Café, in Banani, Dhaka, Bangladesh. Here’s us with the Bangladesh side of the family! Surprised?? Yeah, we have some Bangla links! Anu has some long-lost cousins on his father’s side in Bangladesh. We’ve met some of them before, years ago, when they visited us in our Silchar home in Assam, India, when we were there. They’re not exactly from Dhaka city. Their home, Sreemangal is near the Indian border, about 180km from Dhaka, but they came all the way just to meet us! What a privilege!


Breakfast at the Raintree Dhaka, Bangladesh – That red shirt that I’m wearing is a gift from the Bangladeshi family. Dhonnobad!

From here onwards, our plan went smoothly. Thank God. Next stop, Kuala Lumpur. (To be continued…)

A Different Type of Sound

Another photo post coming up! Bear with me willya!



Just for a comparison with my last post’s theme, here’s a ‘Sound’ with completely different features from Milford Sound, NZ.


This is Khor Ash-Sham (Elphinstone Inlet) in the Musandam Peninsula of Oman. Call it what you want, a fjord, a creek, a sound or an inlet, these are basically water bodies that extend into the land flanked by steep hills or mountains. A fjord is actually an inlet created by a glacier cutting through land. Khor Ash-Sham, being in a hot, barren desert, would not be a fjord in the geographical sense. (There’s no friggin ice, is there?) But neither should Milford Sound be called a Sound as sounds in geography are usually used for a small channel or straits between two pieces of land. But what the heck, who cares?! Enough of the geography lessons! Let’s get on with life and the pictures!

This was the second time we visited Musandam. The first time was in Dec 2008, before we had kids. We went with a Malaysian friend and his family. Unknown to us at that time, Anu was suffering from Hepatitis… (of the E variety, luckily, curable). Still remember, she couldn’t eat anything during the trip. Her condition became worse after the trip, she would be very sleepy, and couldn’t eat anything, especially anything oily. The doctors initially diagnosed gastric, but the medication did nothing. We would eventually find out after I noticed one day, that her urine was unusually dark (she’s a prolific water drinker). I checked her nails and eyes, and saw that they were yellowish (indicating that she probably had jaundice). We insisted to the next doctor we met (which so happened to be at a government hospital), that it was more than gastric (he was gonna prescribe friggin painkillers)! The liver function test that came out told the whole story. She was immediately admitted, and whatever money we paid for visiting the doctor and doing the blood test was returned to us. (That was Dubai government hospitals’ policy at that time. All emergency cases were free). She wasn’t allowed to leave the hospital till she was OK! And we end up staying a couple of weeks in the hospital!!

Anyway, here’re the rest of the photos of our Khor Ash-Sham boat ride.


Here’s the jetty (and we didn’t miss our trip this time, haha, because we were with dad and Hazel probably…)


Our cruise on a dhow (Arabian fishing boat). (Do you see Jayden?)


Dad and Anu enjoying the cruise


Sleepy already, Justin?!? Your Jiko (Hazel) doesn’t seem so…


You can be like Jayden, fooling around with a new found friend! I dunno the little girl’s name but she and her family so happened to be Malaysians, living in Dubai! Fancy meeting a fellow countryman who was staying in the same city as us, on some remote sea inlet, faraway from civilization!


Another friend, yeah it can get quite sleepy, huh?




Khor Ash-Sham (Elphinstone Inlet) – this hidden inlet used to be a haven for pirates to launch attacks on unsuspecting vessels, and for them to hide if pursued by more powerful ships, such as the British. (That may be why one of the names of this area and the adjoining UAE used to be ‘Pirate Coast’!)


Setting foot on Telegraph Island – I didn’t do it the first time we came. Can’t miss it this time round, hehe! Justin and I swam there. If you look closely, you’d see us! Telegraph Island has a story of its own. Click on that link to find out


Dolphin spotting is one of the highlights of a Musandam cruise – a boat chasing dolphins!


There, caught you on camera!!


Khor Ash-Sham, Musandam Governorate, Oman – Dec 2019

Why We Don’t Do Scheduled Tours

ANOTHER PHOTO POST COMING UP… (This is a continuation of my last post).


Here’s Milford Sound, New Zealand. This scenery must be one of the most recognizable places of NZ. Google New Zealand, and you’ll see scores of pictures of Milford Sound. And so, here we are, can’t miss out on this, could we? Never mind that it’s tucked hundreds of miles away from civilization, in some God forsaken corner of the world. (We’re sorta kiasu when it comes to missing out on visiting places, hehe).

Anyway, our Milford Sound trip was another reminder of why we HATE scheduled tours. C’mon why do these things have to come with a time?? Can’t they just let us walk in, and do a tour whenever people come? No, can’t do that. You have to book first. And so, we booked ourselves a cruise on one of the boats, in advance. Come the morning, we enjoyed our breakfast, and as usual for yours truly, took my own sweet time to pack, and then realized that we would not make it on time for the ride, because we’re in Milford Sound Lodge, and not in friggin Milford Sound itself. OK, it’s only 2+km away, but we have to check out, pack our stuff, drive over to the ferry terminal, find a friggin parking (which by chance is NOT very near the terminal), and walk to the terminal.

Not surprisingly, despite our dash (I even forgot to shut the bloody back door of the campervan, until maybe we were half way to the terminal, …luckily nothing dropped out. Just imagine the look on Anu’s face), we missed the ride. Shucks, it ain’t the first time! We missed our time slots in Neuschwanstein Castle (Germany), Hobbiton (NZ), Dubai Marina Cruise, and God knows where else. Luckily, they gave us a later slot, whew!! Here’re the photos.


At the dock of the Milford Sound Visitor Terminal, waiting for our cruise. The one we were supposed to be in had already left :(


Here we go, …looking back at the terminal from our boat


Milford Sound, Southland, New Zealand


The captain of the boat


Hey, aren't those seals?!


And quite a lot of waterfalls. On this one, the boat went really close, like almost into it, before reversing and backing out. All those on the deck were drenched! But it was nice. (We were forewarned…, so we ran back inside just before that, hehe)


Then an underwater observatory


The boys at the Milford Sound Underwater Observatory, waiting for our boat to get back to the visitor terminal




Hey, the sun’s gone! We were lucky to have the sun out earlier, as Milford Sound is gloomy most of the time!




Back on land! At the breakwater walkway

Bye for now. I don’t think this is the last of the scheduled tours… I hope we’ve learnt our lesson though. FINGERS FRIGGIN CROSSED!

And yesterday marked a moment in history, the passing of Queen Elizabeth II, the only British monarch the world has known for ummphh 70 years. RIP your majesty. You've earned your peace to be back with your husband and family.