Going to Malaysia - October 24-25-26

A little background on the trip first. We don’t like to plan too much at work, so thus the trip kind of came together last minute. I’ve been hearing some rumors that we need someone to go Hong Kong for a few weeks now and up until Friday night we still thought that was the destination. We met Friday morning at work with a big group to decide whether or not to go after this deal or to pass on it and keep moving on. The group said yes so it was on. I’m honestly not certain we could have said no but to be honest it sounded like a fun chase anyways and well it did involve me going to Asia. To make this work it was going to require some work from give or take about 10 people - working all weekend and some late nights the following week. By Saturday we finally had the location locked in - Kuala Lampur, Malaysia. At this point I’m pretty excited – a major Southeast Asian city. Then comes the not so exciting part – the flight. We ended up booking the trip on United / Qatar Airlines. It involved a short flight to Dulles and then a flight to Doha, Qatar – a 13hr trek east. After a short layover I’d keep going over to KL which was about another 8hrs.

After kind of throwing things together and getting ready for my Sunday night flight Lora drove me to the airport where the real fun began. My flight was at 7:20pm to Dulles and the check-in process didn’t quite go as smoothly as I anticipated. I tried to print my tickets out at the Kiosk and it wouldn’t let me. I proceeded to talk to the ticketing agent and he told me that the computer wouldn’t print the tickets until he put in valid ticket # for a flight leaving Malaysia. Woops – I was on a one-way ticket in the country. I made some phone calls and after a bit I had a flight to Japan. We talked over the weekend at work about me heading there for another deal we’re working and I was even more excited about going to Tokyo. My little brother and his wife live there right now, although after talking to him I think he’ll be out of town while I’m there but his wife won’t be. The ticket to Japan was very expensive, but that wasn’t my worry – I just knew I couldn’t miss my flight to Dulles. While I was in the air to Dulles another ticket was booked for me and I attempted to tell the Qatar airlines gate agent that I needed to update my ticket # and he said I’d have to do it in Doha. I didn’t anticipate having internet/phone access during my 2 hour layover in Doha so I wasn’t entirely too sure how I was going to communicate the ticket was updated, but the expensive ticket didn’t need to be canceled until midnight Monday so there was tie to wait until I landed in KL. I’m going to go ahead and note that the ticketing agent made numerous comments that he wished all of his passengers were as calm and collected as I was when faced with being told I can’t have tickets to a flight that were paid for.

The next problem, my middle seat on a 13hr flight. I camped out next to the gate agent and gave him my best smile. When it came time to open the seats there was just one and it was given to me. I had an aisle at this point. I work my way up to getting my ticket scanned to board and I make it a few steps past the scanner and some guy stop me. He says my bag is too big and I need to check it. At this point I’m envisioning Meet the Parents and I’m about to tell him that he can pry it from my dead cold fingers. I had a 1U server in my carry-on bag and I wasn't excited about letting it get beat up by the baggage handlers. It’s maybe worth noting I had to take the server out to make it through security as well and they kind of looked at me a bit funny. I started to take the server out of the bag and the wonderfully helpful Qatar gate agent saw that I was planning on taking the server as my second carry-on. He was having none of it. I then tried to pack the suitcase a little better to give the server some padding. I’m waiting to see what it looks like when I get off the plane. Eventually, I make my way to my seat (middle section aisle) which was taken by an old lady that needed a wheelchair. Luckily enough she was in the same seat on the other side so it was still an aisle. As I’m making my way over there a lady asked if I wanted to trade seats and presented me with a window option. I eyed the guy that I’d be sitting next to and went for it. Quite the upgrade from a middle seat.

The flight to Doha was pretty uneventful. I was served some “honey glazed chicken” and an assortment of other crappy airline food for dinner. Breakfast came quite a few hours later and sounded like it was going to be exciting but when my omelet came it didn’t live up to the menu description. It tasted like cardboard. The hash browns were even worse. I tried to throw some salt on everything and it was useless. I quickly gave up and dreamt of the delicious meals to come. The air on the flight was extremely dry – more so than any other flight I’ve been on. I was fairly prepared with a few bottles of water that lasted the entire flight.

I'm in Doha now - so this is a partial post for the time being - I'll update it more later. When we deplaned we boarded a bus that literally drove us probably 150ft. I could barely believe it - must be run by the equivalent the unions we have in the US. All of the signs are in what I'm assuming is Arabic and English. The restroom looked to be pretty common - nothing outstanding although I didn't go into the stalls. The boarding process is pretty weird - they took half of my ticket as usual but then I just went down some stairs to another waiting area. We're waiting for a bus to come get us - it's pretty amusing because some get close to the door and then pause for a second and everyone gets excited. Then he hits the gas and goes - I can't see the driver's face but I have to imagine he's just laughing the whole time.


Now I’m on my flight over to Malaysia and holy crap I’m excited! One thing I didn’t mention about the previous flight is just how exciting it is on non-American airlines. They just keep giving you goodies. Qatar even gives you a toothbrush and some toothpaste and some sort of long socks (I can’t tell if they are for your feet or arms and nobody has them on. Another thing that the US got rid of in the 60s and 70s are hot flight attendants – the rest of the world realized what a great idea this was and stuck with it. Another point for Qatar (hi Lora – love you! =]). I got some great sleep on this flight and when I wasn’t sleeping I was working. For dinner I had some beef dish which was surprisingly good despite looking like poo. They followed it up about an hour or two before landing with a Lamb Kashmiri sandwich which I’m convinced is the Asian version of the Hot Pocket (side note: if you’ve never heard Jim Gaffigan’s Hot Pocket bit go YouTube it right now). The Hot Pocket was labeled Halal which I’m fairly certain means the equivalent of the Jewish Kosher - safe to be eaten by Muslims. We started our descent and my excitement kicked back in. I was staring out the window - unfortunately the airport is about 50km from the city so the view was rather bland.

The rest of the trip is continued in the next blog.