Sunday, September 28, 2014

4 countries, 3 continents in 1 day

This does not happen often. Quite unbelievable, but not entirely fun.

Fri, 15/8/14

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Asia
KUL-LHR : 0020 - 0640

After being told of the KUL-CDG flight delay due to the plane's technical problems, and making last minute changes, we managed to secure our tickets. Our luggage were deposited directly to KLIA's security screening since it was already boarding time. We were escorted by KLIA's security personnel to the immigration check until our boarding gate. We were the last to board, and I guess everybody were quite upset with us for holding the flight. But this was no fault of ours. The journey was smooth but I couldn't sleep well, contrary to Partner in Crime who can sleep literally anywhere.

London Heathrow Airport: 0640, UK, Europe

We arrived London Heathrow airport at 6.40am at Terminal 4. We transferred to Terminal 5 for our connecting flight to Paris CDG via British Airways. Since MAS and BA are under the One World alliance, our BA tickets were issued in KL and we did not have to collect our luggage at Heathrow and check in again for the flight to Paris.

We found a multi faith prayer room complete with the ablution place and sajadah (prayer mat) at Terminal 5 so we performed our prayers there. Luckily we brought some snacks with us as we didn't bring any GBP cash and we didn't want to change money for just some snacks and drinks. Of course we could always use the credit card in case if we wanted to buy anything.



prayer room

LHR-CDG: 0905-1115

Our flight to Paris CDG was on time. Since we got our tickets at the last minute, we didn't get to seat together. I was seated behind Partner In Crime's row. It was a 1 hour 15 min flight. We opted for the vegetarian meal. We were given a pack containing mini danish, orange juice and bircher muesli. It was OK tu sustain us for a few hours. There was no in flight entertainment.



vege meal
London - Paris

Paris Charles De Gaule airport: 1115, France, Europe

We had to wait until almost 12 noon to get our luggage then quickly flagged a taxi from the designated area (we didn't want to take the taxis from touts who were preying on travellers arriving at the arrival hall). We wanted to catch the 1510 Royal Air Maroc flight to Marrakech from Paris Orly airport, which would take about 45 minutes by taxi. We originally wanted to take the bus which would be cheaper (EUR 20/person) but it would take slightly longer than 1 hour, and we had to wait for the 1230 bus so we didn't want to take the risk. The taxi used the meter (the driver I suspect is Vietnamese)  and was charged EUR 80 (double the cost of taking the bus).

Paris Orly airport: 1245, France, Europe

As mentioned in the previous post, MAS did not make the changes to our Royal Air Maroc ticket and we had to buy a new ticket. We still had time to check in although we had just purchased our tickets and we were seated together. Our flight was on time and took 3 hours 10 minutes. Our in flight meal looked something like vermicelli with chicken and it tasted nice to my hungry tummy. There was also no in-flight entertainment.

Royal Air Maroc meal
shared screen display


Marrakech Menara airport: 1715, Morocco, Africa

After all the drama, 13100km and 24 hours later (and technically still on the same day) from our departing point in KUL,we finally arrived at Marrakech. We had to walk on the tarmac to the terminal building and boy was it hot! Very much hotter than in KL. We quickly walked to the terminal where there was already a long queue at the immigration counter. After a very long journey, a hot shower was very much needed! Ah, hopefully our Riad (traditional Moroccan house converted into accommodation place) wouldn't disappoint.

Marrakech Menara airport
13100 km total journey


Labels: ,

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home