TUN - KUL

Sun 14/5/23

Today would be our last day in Tunisia. Our flight back to KUL will be departing at 4pm, so we have a few hours to do some souvenir shopping at the Tunis medina before checking out from the hotel at 12pm and head to the airport.  We planned to have breakfast at The Corner café just in front of the hotel, but it was still closed at 8am. We were told by the hotel receptionist that shops at the medina are closed on Sundays. It was also raining this morning. 

However, we decided to take the chance and asked for the hotel to book a taxi for us. The taxi fare cost from Ibis hotel to the medina was TND5, which we paid by cash. When we reached the medina at 7.50am, a few shops were starting to open. We took the opportunity to take some pictures, without the crowd this time. We walked around the medina until the gate of Bab al-Bahr, then tried to find any café to have breakfast. We were lucky to find Cafe Ben Yedder nearby which was already opened. We had 2 croissant and a café latte for only TND 4.5, it was cheap and tasty so we added 2 more croissants for takeaway (a croissant cost only TND 1.5 )

latte and croissant at Cafe Ben Yedder

Cafe Ben Yedder

By the time we finished our breakfast at 8.30am, more shops have started to open up. We managed to buy some souvenirs this morning from the medina - fridge magnet for TND 5 per piece, hand woven kilim for TND 50 per piece and tajine for TND 21 per piece. We finished our shopping by 10.30am and booked a ride back to the hotel using the Bolt ride app and paid by cash. The journey back cost about TND 10, although the official receipt that I received only cost TND 5.6

One more last shopping for mint tea and traditional biscuit at Carrefour nearby our hotel (cost TND 24) before packing our luggage and checking out at 12 noon, and we headed straight to the airport to return our rental car and checking in our flight. When we reached the airport car park, there was a person wearing an Avis tag already waiting and he inspected our car. We were told to give the car keys to him, but we weren't so sure and the guy didn't speak English, so we asked him to call the Avis counter. We only handed him the keys once the Avis counter confirmed this. We still had to go to the Avis counter at the arrival hall of the airport terminal for some final verification, and then it was done.

After checking in our luggage, we went to have a drink at the airport café to finish up our remaining TND7 cash, it was enough to have a cup of cappuccino. The Tunisian money is a closed currency, hence we could not bring back any Tunisian cash and once we are in the departure hall, Tunisian dinar in cash is no longer accepted. Our wallets were also inspected thoroughly by the immigration and customs officer to ensure there was no Tunisian dinar cash in our possession. A bit of drama when the officer asked us about our drone, but his colleague said it was not a problem.

There is a prayer room, separated by male and female rooms at Tunis airport. However, the ablution facility is separated from the prayer hall. For female, I had to perform my ablution at the female restroom

prayer room at Tunis airport

No more chaos this time around, we boarded the flight in a queue and our seats were secured, unlike the drama during the DOH-TUN sector. The TUN-DOH flight was again operated by Oman air, but the interior and in flight entertainment is by Qatar airways, so were the flight attendants. For the in flight meal, we opted for tumeric mash potato with Hungarian beef. For the next sector DOH-KUL, the flight was operated by Malaysia Airlines. For the inflight meal, we had rice with beef kofta. We reached back KUL as per schedule and got our luggage by 3.50pm (about 1 hour after landing).

Goodbye Tunisia

Tumeric mash potato with Hungarian beef

late night sandwich for supper

rice with beef kofta