KUL-TUN

Thu 4/5/23 

We would be taking a 11 day Tunisian road trip, starting from the capital, Tunis.  For this trip, we booked our tickets through Qatar Airways, part of the OneWorld alliance. There is no direct flight from Kuala Lumpur (KUL) to Tunis (TUN), so in this trip, we had to transit at Doha (DOH)  before arriving to TUN. We bought our ticket in March, less than 2 months from the departure date. Our return trip ticket cost RM 3879 per person. The KUL-DOH sector is operated by Malaysia Airlines, while the DOH-TUN sector is operated by Oman Air.

There was no more Covid 19 procedures to adhere to, although we did took some precaution and filled in a previous health declaration from by the Tunisian government and printed out our vaccination certifications. Both were not required. Malaysians do not require a visa to visit Tunisia.

Our flight from KUL to DOH departed at 3am to a full capacity plane. We were served with chicken bread for late supper (no options) and omelette with potato (which I opted for) or nasi lemak (Partner In Crime's choice). The verdict: Nasi Lemak was a better choice. The international flight nasi lemak version is different from the domestic flight and taste better in my opinion.

chicken bread

omelette with potato

female prayer room at Doha airport

ablution facility within female prayer room at Doha airport

The next sector from DOH to TUN was chaotic. There was a big group of Tunisian and Algerian pilgrims back from Mecca/Medina, who were unsupervised, unlike in Malaysia where we have a group leader to take care of a big group. They did not queue and just sat where they liked in the plane, so I had to show my boarding pass to the couple who were in our seats. Thank goodness they agreed to move to their actual seats.

Another oddity of this flight is that although the plane livery bears the Oman Air logo, the flight attendants, meals and in flight entertainment were of Qatar Airway's. The in flight meal did not disappoint though, we had beef ragout with tumeric mash potato and a lovely dessert (which I finished up- I usually couldn't finish anything of the sweet kind). We were also served with tea and coffee, biscuits and popcorn in between our 6 hour flight.

beef ragout with tumeric mash potato

We finally landed a bit late at about 1pm. The immigration process was smooth. No additional forms were required and our passports were stamped promptly. However, the waiting time for our luggage took almost 2 hours. We finally received our luggage at around 2.45pm. And since we landed at Terminal 2, we had to wait for the transit bus to the Main Terminal as our rental car agency Avis is located at the main terminal. 

the crowd waiing for luggage at Tunis airport Terminal 2 

Luckily there were some Tunisian people who spoke English and helped to guide us on where to get the transit bus. While waiting for the bus, I chatted with a girl from Libya, who was transiting from South Korea to Libya, to visit here mother who was unwell, and her husband is Bangladeshi who is working in South Korea. I was amazed.

Tunis airport terminal 2 

supposed to wait for transit bus here

At the main terminal, another confusion ensued as I tried to exchange cash (achat) from Euro (EUR) to Tunisian dinar (TND) at the departure hall, only to find out after 30 minutes of queuing that I needed to that at the arrival hall, on the lower level. We would have avoided all this had our plane landed at the main terminal. The exchange rate for the day was  1 EUR = 3.327 TND. We changed EUR 350 to 1164.450 TND. The TND currency is up to 3 decimal points. 

Then we made our way to the Ooredoo booth to buy a SIM card with 30GB data only for TND30. 

Finally, we went to get our rental car (Swift automatic for EUR 550 for 10 days rental) and was out of the airport at 4.40pm, 3.5 hours after landing. The drive from the airport to our accommodation at Dar Ben Gacem Kahia in the Tunis medina took another one hour as we had to manoeuvre the narrow streets and avoiding pedestrians and motorcycles. We also had to drive around to find a suitable parking spot as there is no parking at the Dar. We finally found a spot which is about 10 minutes walking to the Dar. There was no parking attendant around at 6pm, so we decided to come back early the next morning to pay for the parking. 

The dar did not disappoint - it was beautiful with the decorations, courtyard and rooftop. We posed and took pictures around the dar. Our room cost TND 242 (RM 363 / EUR 72) per night with breakfast. 

the courtyard

open roof 

rooftop

the rooms

our bedroom

decor at the lobby

sitting place at the rooftop

lobby 

ceiling decoration

After refreshing ourselves, we ventured out to replenish our hungry tummies. We found a humble restaurant not too far from our Dar and pointed out to the dish that our neighbour at the table was eating. Another dish, we found out later was escalope ougane. Our dinner tonight cost only TND 9.5 (about RM 14). We walked around the area near our Dar, and then retired for the night. We would venture out to the medina the next morning. 

shredded bread stirred with gravy 

escalope ougane