A sling through Singapore... and a few other places.

[sjd]

Sitting in the BNE QF J lounge at the start of a 3 week trip to South East Asia to 4 countries on 5 airlines and a few other forms of transport. Very excited about my first international J experience (thanks to JASA advice on AFF), coming up on Sunday on QF5 and guesting my sister into the F lounge. But to get things rolling my worldly goods for the next three weeks, never have I packed so light:


Tonight I'm on QF551 to SYD. Given that most of my flying is within QLD or BNE to MEL, I rarely board the B767 so this will be my first go on the mildly refurbished birds (they gave them a once over with spray and wipe or something). Oh, and I snagged 23A at T-80, but no op-up keeping my record of 0% consistent.

I'm meeting my sister, who will be travelling with me, in Sydney in a few hours. Tomorrow we see the Sydney Symphony perform Howard Shore's score The Lord of the Rings: the Return of the King live at the Sydney Opera House.

 

[sjd]

QF551 VH-OGQ last night returned to the gate just before we were about to roll onto the runway. Went tech with an air conditioning fault. The Pilot and CSM kept us informed of the engineer's progress but by the time we got underway we were an hour an twenty minutes late. Still at least we were underway and not stuck in Brisbane for the night. My sister's flight ex MEL was also delayed. She sent me a text "There is still no plane here!! Plane, yes, no, yes, yes, plane, no, yes, no, maybe." Originally I was supposed to get in an hour before her and enjoy a relaxing glass of red in the J lounge. Instead she won the race to Sydney, which puts me behind 0-1 in the sibling rivalry stakes thus far.

 

[Melburnian1]

Well written. Please illustrate as lavishly as possible. Perhaps so far this thread should be under 'QF delays and cancellations....', so let's hope your luck improves and that by the end of the trip you have evened the sibling rivalry score.

 

[docjames]

Looking forward to this TR - please include all modes of transport!

Most importantly - have a great time!

 

[JessicaTam]

Nothing like a bit of sibling rivalry to spice things up! Looking forward to the next instalment.

 

[sjd]

Thanks for the encouragement. A few modes of transport down now, but first to QF5 on Sunday 29 Sept.
We checked in at the First Counter about 4 hours before the flight. The check in agent noticed that I was up the front and my sister was down the back. I told her that we were siblings who needed to be kept separated. She said it was the same with her kids!
We arrived at the First Lounge just after the first wave of Asia bound flights had left and were soon enjoying champagne and eggs Benedict at a seat by the window. This was followed by the pancakes because... We'll just because.

 

[sjd]

Gratuitous F Lounge breakfast photo:

 

[sjd]

There was one 20 minute spot available in the spa, so I sent my sister off to enjoy that given that she had 7 hours of whY o whY ahead of her. A family arrive in the lounge and their two young boys, guessing 6 and 3 or maybe a bit younger, ran straight at the windows to see the planes. The youngest pointed at the A380 being prepared for the trip to LAX and declared, "ay-free-ay dee". I told him he was correct and asked if he new that the plane next to it was a 747, he ignored me as he has spotted a VA B738 coming in to land. He pointed at it and again shouted, "ay-free-ay dee." Well a 50% strike rate isn't bad and there was no dampening his enthusiasm.
I was also keenly watching to see which bird would be taking us to Singapore. For the past 9 or so months since I booked this JASA I've had the highly recommend refurb 5B seat selected. Then about a week out the seat map changed and the nose showed one of the old F configurations. I selected 2K and this was still my seat at checkin but I was a bit nervous about hanging on to it. All fears evaporated when OJM was towed to Gate 24.

 

[sjd]

We boarded on time and for the first time ever I turned left upon entering the aircraft. Whilst I might be WP, it is entirely through Y and often discount Y domestic trips for work in the past two years. This marked my first J international trip ever and I have to say that the service from the QF cabin staff was excellent.
But first the old F cabin, it's great. Because there are so few seats in it, it feels very open and affords lots of light and views out both sides of the aircraft. Compared to the one window you can sometimes only just peek out of in Y, this was a very nice change and also much nicer than the J cabin a few rows back. The toilet with a window is very cool and almost worth the price of admission.
The old F seats, at least 2K on OJM, is very comfortable and although I was offered one of the new mattresses, I did not need it. For me at around six foot in the old money, the length when fully flat was more than adequate. The screens are all right, but I did have to turn the brightness up all the way to make Iron Man 3 watchable.There are some negatives though mostly to do with stuff. We all now fly with a lot of stuff, phones, tablets, noise cancelling cans, that book I swear I'm actually going to read on this trip. These old F seats really don't have anywhere for all this stuff.

 

[sjd]

Let me give some examples.
See my iPad? It's not really at home there is it?

The ledge against the window behind the screen was the only place for my NC headphone case. Fine but a little awkward.

And then there are these funny little spaces at arm level when you are seated upright but that get progressively harder to access as you recline.
There is also this quaint reminder of entertainment units past:

No one offered me a cassette. But these are quibbles and did not detract from the space the fully flatness and the food.

 

[sjd]

Yes, the food and the wine.
1st course wagyu bresaola with a Mornington Peninsula Red Claw Chardonnay.

Main course chicken schnitzel sandwich (vege lasagne unavailable) with a Yerring Station Shiraz Viognier.

Then sticky wine (forgot to ask which) with a lemon and blueberry pudding.

Managed to also find room later for a snack.

And coffee...

 

[sjd]

The name of the biscuit offered me with the coffee, Emu Bottom, reminded me of something I'd seen earlier when strolling through the duty free zone in SYD.

I'm not sure that anyone whose gotten close to a kangaroo, close enough to get a whiff of its essence at any rate, would consider this a wise addition to their dietary supplement routine. Fortunately the biscuits did not even have the slightest tang of their namesake (no, not from experience, sometimes imagination is enough) and were very nice.
Had some great views of our wide brown land.

 

[sjd]

Later an Indonesian volcano poked its cone through the clouds. This was somewhere near Denpasar, will have to look it up.


Despite a delayed departure, we landed at SIN a few minutes early.

The next morning it was up at sparrows to get out to Woodlands Train checkpoint for a journey up the Malay Peninsula. The SMRT was a breeze to use and we connected very quickly with the two metro trains and one bus to take us from the hotel out to the causeway. Still the journey was about 1hr and quarter. I was a bit worried about finding it, as Singapore does not make it easy to leave it by train, but everything was where Google Maps promised it would be, to my relief.
There's not much of the romance of train travel when leaving from the soullessly named train checkpoint. They don't even pretend to call it a station. No waiting on the platform for the train to arrive here. First you queue orderly to get your ticket checked, then you queue for Singapore immigration, then the same for Malaysian immigration, then Malaysian Customs and by then the train is waiting for you and you better hurry up or it's a long walk to KL.

 

[sjd]

We had seats on the air conditioned first class coach. The train was looking very tired but the seats were comfortable.

My sister commented in how much more legroom she had compared to the flight the night before. I had not quite as much.


It's is a long journey from Singapore Woodlands Train Checkpoint (just typing that name is dispiriting) to KL Sentral, about 7 1/2 hours. Remarkably similar to the flying time for QF5. Less food on offer this time:

It tasted like banana bread. There was a food trolley that whizzed past once with a few other options to buy. We'd stocked up with some snacks the night before in Singapore so no one was starving. I'd expected the trip to be a little more scenic and whilst it was interesting, most of the landscape the train passed through was a plantation of one form or another, Palm trees for the most part for Palm oil I'm guessing. Don't think anyone was home here:

 

[jetlagger]

Thanks for sharing your entertaining TR thus far..
Train journey looks nostalgic.. & I have also enjoyed the SIN <->KUL Choo Choo a number of times over the years.
Have fun & looking forward to further instalments..

 

[sjd]

The next leg was the overnight train from KL to Butterworth, Penang. Certainly an experience, perhaps not one that I'd repeat but I don't regret it either. We enjoyed a few hours in KL, grabbed a great dinner in Jalan Alor and then returned to KL Sentral. After retrieving our bags from the difficult to use lockers at Sentral, I remembered that there was a lounge and as we had first class sleeper tickets, we could use it. It's up on the 3rd level of Sentral and looks out across to the metro line and down into the main ticket hall. Some of the furnishings:

When the time to board came, the lounge attendant (do not imagine anyone like the usual airline lounge dragons, this guy was very laid back and seemed to have a bunch of his mates there for a coffee) took us to the elevator which went directly down to the platform level. A nice touch, a bit like straight for the lounge to the gate, but only a bit.
The sleeper cabins were fine but very tired, he beds long enough (longer than the bed I'd had in Singapore the night before at the hotel Victoria) and there were enough places to put things (cough 2k cough). The sleep, however was not so great. The train made a lot of stops and I seemed to jolt awake each time it did. Then at several points during the night other passengers or train staff were very noisy outside ours cabin. Still I managed to get some shut eye in before waking up at 4:30 am to be ready to alight in Butterworth at 5:30 am.
We made our way from the train to the ferry terminal, only a short walk. There we had to exchange current Malaysian notes and coins to the old, out of circulation coins to pay the R1.20 fare. This was at a booth just before the ticket gates to the ferry. Then at the gate, an attendant took the old coins and waved us through as we had luggage with us. So why the need to change coins? Best not to ask really. It's the system, you just follow it.
It was blessedly smooth for our short, dark ferry across to Georgetown, Penang, clocking up mode of transport number three. After a longer than I expected walk to our hotel (I'm notorious for these, when I say it's not a long way to walk, my wife asks "is that a sjd not a long way?") finally rolled into the magnificent E&O. A shower later it was time to do the thing we'd come to Penang to do, eat.

 

[sjd]

Some photos of the sleeper cabin:


And these held me aloft for the night:

Until we arrived at Butterworth:

And took the ferry.
.

Incidentally the ferry had lots of signage about using life jackets, but no sign of actual life jackets. Details, I suppose, mere details.

 

[robd]

An enjoyable read. Thanks for sharing. Hope there is more to come.

 

[Major]

I am also enjoying the read...keep it going

 

[AIRwin]

It was blessedly smooth for our short, dark ferry across to Georgetown, Penang, clocking up mode of transport number three.

Selamat datang ke Malaysia! You can add another mode of transport - the new funicular up Penang Hill (Bukit Bendera)?