Sadly all good things come to an end with BMI being bought over by Avios. It means that there will be no more cheap redemption on Business Class with Star Alliance carriers soon and hardly any worthy replacement is in sight.

Oh well… It was as good as it lasted.

The schedule so far looks something like this:

January
Yet another CNY in Malaysia again.

February
To maximize the value of my BMI redemption from Tokyo in December, I added an additional SQ J segment to Dhaka in February. Coming back to SIN will be via BKK with TG and SQ J (and onward to MNL in April) on another BMI redemption.

March
I always want to try flying on an turboprop which is quite difficult from jets-dominated SIN. Firefly operates ATR72 to SZB (and few other cities) but the ticket prices aren’t that value-for-money. Until now that is. 102 MYR (S$42) is cheap enough to tempt me but I somehow managed to book the wrong date (4 March instead of 3 March). Which means I will only have a few hours in KL before returning on AirAsia (S$25).

April
On the back of the DAC-SIN redemption, I added on SIN-MNL on SQ J on 28 April. Took leave on 30 April to enjoy a long Labour Day weekend, most probably in Boracay.

May
Crazy month started with coming back from the Philippines on Labour Day. Going to Hong Kong two weeks later is to start yet another BMI redemption to Moscow (Refer to June). The month ends with a weekend trip to Kuching with AirAsia again (S$100 return a/i with food on-board).

June
Trans-Mongolian.
Four travelers.
Three countries.
Two weeks.
One LONG journey.

Rest of the Year
No firm plans yet but will try to use up all my BMI miles as well as my leave. Potential destinations include Sydney (Scoot’s inaugural destination), Bali (To get to Timor Leste?) and Taiwan (10 years since last vist).

Nine new countries was a record for me (beating 2009′s 8) and I sat in Business Class for the first time (IST-SIN on TK).

I just looked through my passport and it seemed that I took trips out of Singapore almost every month.

(Countries with * = visited for 1st time)

January
An unexpected trip for my grandma’s funeral (Malaysia)

February
CNY (Malaysia)

March
-NIL-

April

Diving in Pulau Dayang (Malaysia)

May

Auckland and Rotorua over Vesak Day weekend (New Zealand*)

June
-NIL-

July

Watched Liverpool in Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia)

August

Abode of Peace (Brunei*, Malaysia)

September
-NIL- (Due to F1)

October

Weekend trip to (rainy) Ho Chi Minh City (Vietnam)

October/November

Paris to Istanbul by train (Malaysia, France*, Germany*, Austria*, Slovakia*, Hungary*, Romania*, Bulgaria, Turkey)

December
Lads’ weekend in Batam (Indonesia),
Grandma’s anniversary (Malaysia) &

Christmas in Tokyo via Seoul (South Korea, Japan*)

I would like to write reports for all the trips but somehow I lack the discipline to complete them.

My new year resolution is to finish the one on Korea/Japan soon and get going on my Europe trip after that. Hopefully the Europe trip report will be done(or well in progress) before my next trip in February.

Here’s an excerpt:

A New York City subway train holds 1,200 people. This blog was viewed about 4,300 times in 2011. If it were a NYC subway train, it would take about 4 trips to carry that many people.

Click here to see the complete report.

Part I: Prologue
Part II: Budget to Paris (SIN-KUL-ORY)

SIN – KUL – ORY

Purchase

There wouldn’t be this trip if not for the cheap KUL-ORY ticket on AirAsia X (DJ) bought last November. It cost me only 614 MYR (~261 SGD) and included 2 meals and 15kg allowance of checked baggage. Three months before the trip, I bought the SIN – KUL ticket on AirAsia (AK) for 52 SGD (0 for the ticket, 32 for taxes & fees and 16 for baggage). There would be a layover of three hours at KUL LCCT which should be more than safe enough for the connection.

Pre-trip

I did my OLCI as soon as it was available (seven days before the flights). AirAsia had started to charge for counter check-in at the airport but my tickets weren’t affected since my tickets would bought before September. I got a pretty good seat on SIN-KUL; didn’t mind the aisle seat 17D as it would be an evening flight without any view out of the window. I wasn’t so lucky with KUL-ORY sector, getting a middle seat 20J in the 3-3-3 configured Airbus 340. I was contemplating about paying for a seat selection before realizing that I couldn’t do that after check in. Nightmare awaited on the flight then.

SIN

I arrived rather early for my flight at Changi T1, thanks to a lift from my brother.

Departures for the night

AK 720 for KUL

The check-in area was rather deserted.

Home of AirAsia in SIN

Last minute purchase

I dropped my baggage at one of the counters and my backpack was definitely within the 15kg allowance.

Light traveler

With plenty of time before boarding I wandered around the land-side area.

AirAsia

Unlike many airports which don’t allow non-passengers to enter (ie DEL), SIN doesn’t mind having many non-flying members of the public to visit its shops and restaurants.

Queue for food

I also visited the viewing area but the light conditions and mirrors didn’t allow me to take any good photographs of the planes. I would make do with a shot of the air-side.

Air-side

No trip report is complete without a photograph of the boarding pass.

Self-printed boarding pass

I couldn’t decide which was worse: self-printed boarding pass or the ones on thermal paper.

The immigration control was painless and I was in air-side in no time.

Another busy evening at SIN

There were some interesting facilities in T1 which I didn’t notice before.

Fish spa anyone?

Post on wheels

There wasn’t any queue at the security at gate D47 because I was early.

I also got to see my ride arriving.

My ride to KUL

Blurrier pic

What I like about AirAsia is that its flights depart and arrive in T1 which is way nicer than the Budget Terminal used by TR.

Aerobridge

AK 720 SIN – KUL

Route: SIN – KUL
Flight no.: AK 720
STD: 9:20
STA: 10:30
Time taken: 1h10m
Distance traveled: 196 miles / 313 km
Aircraft: Airbus A320
Registration: 9M-AHA

The load for the flight was decent with around 80% of the seats filled. No empty seat besides me but I would just bear it for 45 minutes.

View to the front

View of the back

Legroom shot

In-flight sale

What was on offer?

Hmmm will there be free munchies for me in the 2nd flight?

Although the plane was only four years old, its wear and tear were visible.

Rough edges

The washroom wasn’t properly maintained and I found trash in it. Probably there wasn’t enough for the crew to clean it during the short turnaround in SIN.

Like my earlier flight to BWN in August, I noticed a crew with Filipino flag on her nametag. Yet another trainee from the new AirAsia Philippines.

Tune

We landed on time but the plane had to taxi to the furthest end of KUL LCCT. I was suspecting that 9M-AHA’s next flight would be a domestic one.

SCRAMBLE!

Layover at KUL LCCT

It was a long walk from the plane to the immigration controls at the other end of the terminal.

I doubled my pace and was lucky enough to be ahead of the passengers arriving from DEL on DJ 173.

Although I was among the first to pass through the immigration, my luggage was already waiting for me at the belt. It must have arrived during my long walk between the plane and the belt.

KUL LCCT was a familiar place although it took me some time to locate the baggage drop for my flight.

Spartan KUL LCCT - not crowded at all

Paris-bound

There wasn’t any queue because I was early. The check-in agent was friendly but upon seeing my non-EU passport requested me to produce a return ticket.

I explained that I wouldn’t be flying back from Paris and would be continuing to Germany by train. She seemed unsure what to do and consulted the list of countries in the Schengen area. She showed me the list and asked if I had any air/train ticket out of these countries. I responded by showing her my ticket confirmation for the train between Budapest and Bucharest as well as my itinerary for my flight home from IST. I wasn’t sure if it was sufficient for the authorities but she managed to key in the data and I was free to go.

Feeling a little peckish I decided to get some fried chicken from Marrybrown.

Sinful

After supper I decided to find the AirAsia merchandise kiosk.

It was outside the terminal building

Nothing caught my fancy and I decided to go to the air-side early.

The Plaza Premium Lounge located beside the security check had a banner which caught my eye.

Interesting offer for those passing through KUL frequently

Strangely the Malaysian immigration didn’t want to have my fingerprints scanned. It was the first time for me since the rule was introduced earlier this year. Could anyone help explain why?

By then the airport was winding down as the only flights left for the night were mine to ORY and 5J 502 to MNL.

Empty gates

Shutters down

I grabbed a bottle of water from the cafe at a princely sum of 4.15 MYR

Cafe Expresso

Some passengers were huddled around the power points to charge their electronic appliances for the loooooong flights ahead.

Free WiFi doesn

This report wouldn’t be complete with my self-printed boarding pass.

2nd boarding pass of the day

Passengers are now able to purchase fly-through tickets (in my example SIN-KUL-ORY) and need not pass through Malaysian immigration. While the arrangement is definitely more convenient (no queue for immigration controls, collection of baggage or check-in at counters), I wasn’t sure how one could stay sane for more than an hour of waiting at KUL LCCT. The air-side facilities are really limited and it gets really crowded during the day.

Close to boarding time a queue began to form at the gate. There were more European passengers than Asian ones; the ratio was probably three was to one. AirAsia X seemed to appeal more to the Europeans than Asians.

T18

MH encroaching in AK

There was an additional security check at the gate area officials asked each traveler about his/her purpose for traveling. It hadn’t occurred to me before but luckily the guy questioning me was quite friendly. Was this additional check due to the destination being Paris? I’ve no idea though.

Boarding

KUL – ORY

Route: KUL – ORY
Flight no.: DJ 2012
STD: 01:20
STA: 09:00
Time taken: 13h40m
Distance traveled: 6,506 miles / 10,470 km
Aircraft: Airbus A340-300
Registration: 9M-XAB
Name: Xcalibur

While waiting to board the plane I managed to snap a photograph of Xcalibur, the plane which would bring us to Europe.

Xcalibur

When I reached my seat 20J, 20H was already occupied by the father of an Indonesian family (found that out at the queue for French immigration control later) and the rest of his clan were seated across the aisle while 20K was vacant.

Leg space in 20J

Both of us heaved a sigh of relief when the captain came on to the PA and announced that boarding was completed. I commented to Mr 20H that it was a lucky day for both of us before moving to seat 20K for the rest of the journey. The load for the flight was pretty good, I estimated that it was 80% filled and there weren’t many empty seats around.

While waiting for the plane to be air-borne, I decided to see whether there were any differences in the seat pockets between AK and DJ’s planes.

Bigger plane definitely

Korean menu

Got to admit that PSP will be a nice form of IFE

The departure time came and went but we were still on the ground.

Cabin while waiting for take-off

Thankfully the delay was only around 20 minutes and so and we were in the air by 1.50am local time.

Bye KUL

Around an hour into the flight the crew started to do the first round of meal service. Those who pre-booked (me included) were served first.

Nasi Lemak

Tadaa

Complimentary water

AirAsia’s nasi lemak was good as usual (although a little too salty) and after the meal I decided to turn in.

I hadn’t bought any comfort kit but decided to see my zip-lock bag of clothes as a cushion.

Necessity is the mother of invention

I woke up several hours later when the crew was doing the second round of BOB. My pre-paid meals wouldn’t be served until the breakfast service which was 2 hours before landing though.

Lovely sky outside

Unable to go back to sleep, I watched some Top Gear on my Ipod to kill time.

The cabin after 12 hours

I didn

As promised breakfast was served around two hours before landing.

Briyani was definitely a weird choice for breakfast.

Chicken Briyani

Sedap

The food was surprisingly good for inflight catering but both meals were a little too salty for me. The portions weren’t big either but luckily I wasn’t particularly hungry.

After the meal I went to the washroom (as well as to stretch my legs) and took the opportunity to snap another photograph of the cabin.

Just a few more hours to go

I was getting kinda restless when the captain came on the PA and announced that we would be descending and landing in ORY soon.

Above the clouds

Landing video to be added

We landed on a glorious morning in Orly. While taxiing I got to see ORY-based birds.

AF

Regional birds

CityJet

OpenSkies of BA

I also saw some Corsairfly planes but couldn’t take any good pictures of them. After a pretty long taxi, 9M-XAB was parked beside a Tunis Air plane.

We needed to pass through the Premium seats to disembark and of course I had to get a picture.

Premium class

Cool air hit me as soon as I exited the plane. The temperature was around 10 degrees, quite a big change from the barmy 30 degrees in the tropics

Thanks for the ride

Thoughts

Considering how little I paid  (around S$320 in all), it was hard to find any fault with the flights. The SIN-KUL flight was a typical AK one; brought me from point A to B cheaply. My first time on AirAsia X was a pleasant surprise. Although it was my longest flight to date (~13 hours), it didn’t feel quite as long. The seat was pretty adequate for my size and the meals were good as usual. I couldn’t recall anything much about the service which meant that they didn’t do anything wrong (or exceptional either).

Part I: Prologue
Part II: Budget to Paris (SIN-KUL-ORY)

Around this time last year, AirAsia X announced Paris as its second European destination. The price was simply too irresistible and I bought the ticket for 11 months later, not knowing whether the trip will be on.

My leave application was eventually approved and I got down to planning. Re-visiting Istanbul was high on my agenda and the excellent Man in Seat 61 gave me the idea of retracing the Orient Express. Paris and Istanbul were the termini of the famous train route and I thought that it would be a neat idea to travel between them by trains.

Initially I intended it to be a solo trip but somehow I ended up with companionship for almost the entire journey. An army friend W happened to be in Paris for work and I could do some sightseeing with him during my time there. Another friend J who was working in Romania for six months would be joining me in Vienna, Budapest and Istanbul.

Some of the highlights of the trip would be the six new countries (which would bring the number of countries visited to be greater than my age), reunion with a friend from exchange, first time in Business class and last but not least revisiting Istanbul.

Strangely I wasn’t terribly excited about the trip as the departure date drew closer. I blamed it on work but I was definitely glad to be back traveling.

Pt I: Prologue
Pt II: Outbound (SIN – KUL – BWN)
Pt III: Brunei
Pt IV: Inbound (BWN – SIN – KUL)
Pt V: Epilogue

This trip brought me to Brunei, my 8th Southeast Asian country. Only Philippines and Timor Leste were still missing from my list; Philippines should be easy enough but Timor Leste would be a challenge (in terms of cost and schedule mainly).

Brunei is also country no. 20 on my list of countries visited. Qatar wasn’t included as I was only on transit and didn’t get out of the airport. HK, Macau and Taiwan aren’t counted as well because they are not UN members (although they have their own immigration control).

Our AirAsia flights were really cheap at around S$30; the Tiger Airways ones were double of that but the total amount that I spent on flight was only around S$100. The flights were standard LCC ones; brought me from point-to-point with little fuss. The only delay that I experienced was on the last flight with TR and caused me to miss the last public transportation home. I didn’t blame Tiger entirely though as it had little control over traffic congestion over SIN.

To be honest I wouldn’t recommend Brunei highly as a tourist destination. It has its charm but also has decidedly less character compared to its neighbors Sabah and Sarawak. Perhaps my trip was too short and I didn’t experience all of what Brunei has to offer. However I won’t be in a hurry to return.

Pt I: Prologue
Pt II: Outbound (SIN – KUL – BWN)
Pt III: Brunei
Pt IV: Inbound (BWN – SIN – KUL)
Pt V: Epilogue

Drop off

The bus decided that it was the furthest he would go and turned around after dropping us off. Both of us felt that the situation was quite weird but we just sucked it up and walked towards the terminal building.

Walking on the road

Five minutes later we reached the Departure terminal.

Nope no BI C today

Like most places in the kingdom, the airport seemed a little underwhelming.

Enclosed area is where the check-in counters are

Our bags were scanned before entering the enclosed area and check-in had already began.

Queue to check-in

Kinda gaudy design

There was also an airport tax of B$12 to be paid at the counter. The lady at the check-in counter refused my S$1 coin and forced me to break a B$10 note.

Passing the immigration was hassle-free and we were in air-side in no time.

Air-side

The washroom was located in a disabled-unfriendly location.

Down you go

Outside the toilet the counter for rental of day room was unmanned.

Anybody here?

Nursery seemed closed as well

The transfer desk in the waiting area wasn’t staffed as well.

Perhaps the staff only appeared after arrivals of BI flights

Free transit tour available

A glance at the FIDS revealed that BWN wasn’t a busy airport at all.

The next flight after mine was 2.5 hours away

There was an advertisement which caught my attention.

Trying to get more return visitors?

After clearing the security we settled in the gate area waiting for our plane to arrive from KUL.

Third boarding pass of the trip

12 bucks for utilizing BWN

Our ride finally arrived.

Just arrived

Is she an aviation fan too?

Following the yellow line

Can't recall whether it's loading or unloading

S and I both got aisle seats. I was willing to swap seats with the mom of the family who sat beside me but she insisted that it wasn’t necessary.

Aisle view

Don't really like to read these kinda things on flights

I spent most of my flight reading while S spent his sleeping.

Reading about Palestine

I couldn’t recall much from the flight except that when we disembarked both S and I made a point to walk faster in order to reach the immigration ahead of the rest.

Still managed to sneak a shot of AirAsia X birds

We were subjected to yet another round of Malaysian immigration and the process was slow as usual with the biometric scanning in place.

After the immigration counters I realized that there was a good place to take photographs of AirAsia’s planes.

I think it's an A330

At their home base

My ride from BWN: 9M-AFL

We decided to have dinner at the food court which was located beyond the Domestic terminal and the shuttle drop-off point.

Full of flies

The hygiene level wasn’t best and my hotpot noodles was disappointing at best. I was wondering how great the business of the stalls would be if their food were half-decent considering how many passengers pass through KUL LCCT daily.

After dinner it was almost time to check in for our final flight.

KUL FIDS

A sizeable queue had formed up in front of us.

All heading to SIN

Open for check-in

Although the queue was long, we still had time to hit McD’s after getting our boarding passes.

The queues at the immigration weren’t as bad as the one entering Malaysia despite the biometric scanning.

Ms Song Hye Kyo saying hi to us on the air-side

Final boarding pass

The inbound from Singapore arrived only after our boarding time. I knew we were in for a delay.

Gate T3 again

Sneaky shot

Cabin shots:

"Can I help you?"

Legroom

We took off late but I thought we could make up for time while flying.

However the captain came onto the PA when we were closer to Singapore and informed that due to heavy congestion we would be circling around for quite a bit before we could land.

Finally we were almost half an hour past our scheduled time of arrival when we landed.

SIN finaaaaaaaaaally

Back in home base

Long walk to Immigration

No luggage to collect though

The late arrival had an impact on how I got home. We managed to catch bus 27 out of the airport but the last bus from Tampines towards my place had left.

It meant that I had to spend S$5 for the short cab ride home.

Pt I: Prologue
Pt II: Outbound (SIN – KUL – BWN)
Pt III: Brunei
Pt IV: Inbound (BWN – SIN – KUL)
Pt V: Epilogue

Stepping outside the airport both of us could feel that the weather in Brunei wasn’t as humid as Singapore’s.

Following the instruction from our guidebook (what else but Lonely Planet), we took a right after exiting the arrival terminals and attempted to find a bus stop.

There wasn’t any bus stop in sight but a nice Bruneian man told us in English that we could flag any of the purple public buses passing by.

Sure enough a little while later a Bus 36 (adorned with Filipino flags on the windscreen) came and off we hopped on it.

Inside the bus

A little known fact outside the region is that Bruneian dollar is pegged to Singapore dollar at par; Singapore dollar is accepted as customary tender in Brunei and vice versa.

Thus we were able to pay our B$1 bus fare using a S$2 note and the driver accepted without any fuss.

Towards BSB

It didn’t take the most direct route to the capital. Instead it went through several residential estates and passed by quite a few buildings.

Ministry of Culture and ....

One of the palaces?

Terrace Hotel - Where we ended up staying

Closer to town we were stuck in a rather heavy traffic. No idea why though.

Chung Hwa Middle School in the background - its most famous alumni is probably Taiwan-based artiste Wu Chun

The bus reached its terminal after almost 30 minutes since leaving the airport and we decided to take a look at the K.H. Soon Resthouse located a few blocks away.

However we struggled a while with our map-reading and orientation of the small town.

The brown building and the Arabic script reminded me of Syria

Somehow we managed to stumble on the guesthouse and went in to enquire about the rates. We were told by the receptionist that double with attached toilet is B$45 and the one without is B$40.

We did take a look at the rooms but couldn’t make a decision. We told the receptionist that we would like to shop around first and decided to check out Terrace Hotel, the one which we passed by earlier on the bus.

It was a few minutes walk up the road that we came from and seemed kinda quiet.

Its receptionist quoted us the price of B$80 and offered us the key to a double room at level 2. We went to check it out and decided that it was probably worth the extra money for just one night.

Beds

TV & Table

Bathtub

View from our balcony

Back at the lobby I asked the receptionist whether it was the best price that he could offer; in the end we agreed that we did not need breakfast since S was fasting and settled on B$75. The receptionist also gave us the password to the free WiFi which worked exceptionally well throughout the stay.

After freshening up, we decided to take a walk around BSB before the sun set.

Portraits of the Sultan and his consort at the hotel lobby

Slightly down the road from our hotel were food stalls selling food to those who would be breaking fast soon.

Food stalls

We decided to explore a bit more and promised to check out the stalls later.

More scenes of BSB:

Some state building

One of the ministries

There's a Jalan Sultan in Singapore too

He's everywhere

Funky-looking clock in the middle of the road

Nice frame for Sultan Omar Ali Saifuddin Mosque

Citibank in Jawi - Cool

Soon we reached Kampung Ayer, probably BSB’s most famous landmark.

Obelisk

Plaque

Across the river was Kampung Ayer.

Funny to see the giant advertisement board in the middle of the village

The boatman in the above picture offered us a tour of the water village for B$20.

With the memories of sea-sickness in P. Dayang still fresh in my mind, I didn’t want to go near the flimsy boat (although S fancied a ride around the village).

In the end I was happy just taking pictures from the shore.

Safer on land

After lingering there for a while, we turned back inland and walked through Yayasan Complex (shopping mall in downtown BSB).

The mosque from another angle

Dinner time beckoned and we stumbled upon Ayamku, which we found out later was featured on Lonely Planet.

“Brunei’s answer to KFC, this is one of the cheapest places in town to get a meal. You can get a big piece of fried chicken, some rice and a drink for about B$3. And the chicken is surprisingly good. One note: this may be purely coincidental, but many of the diners here seemed remarkably plump for Southeast Asians.”

ROFL!

There was a set meal for two at B$10 which looked like this:

5 pieces of chicken, two portions of rice, salad, chili and cakes and two bottles of Pepsi

Chicken

I remembered to take photos of our food because S had to wait for the time to break fast.

The chicken looked dry on the outside but to our surprise they were actually quite juicy. The chili sauce was not bad as well.

So over dinner we were discussing about our big plan of bringing the franchise to Singapore. Lonely Planet did get it spot with this recommendation.

After dinner we retraced our way towards our hotel.

BSB at 8pm looked kinda like 3am in Tampines.

Which was empty.

Perhaps it was due to Ramadan and many were still in the mosques for sermon.

The food stalls that we passed by earlier were closed by the time we passed by them again. However we discovered that there was a small Hari Raya bazaar nearby.

At there S bought not one but two baju kurung for his new nephew and neither fit. The nephew will need to wait a couple of years to wear them because his uncle couldn’t judge the size.

Although our guidebook indicated that there was a hawker opposite our hotel, we missed it completely on our way out.

Hawker centre

Its light attracted us on our way back and we were debating whether to eat ambuyat, Brunei’s national dish at one of the stalls.

In the end we didn’t as we were too full and went back to our hotel to wash up.

We did go down again later for some drinks.

S got the diluted milo

More people around now

The next morning we did make full use of our hotel stay and slept in till almost 12 noon.

After checking out, we decided to check out the Royal Regalia Museum which was around 5-10 minutes walk away.

View of the building from the side

To our surprise there were actually tour groups (from China) visiting the museum. Besides us there were quite a number of other tourists as well.

Visitors were requested to leave their shoes at the doors and had to deposit their bags, phones and cameras into the lockers.

However we were allowed to take photographs of the lobby area (where there were some exhibits).

Royal chariot

Ceremonial shields

There were quite a number of exhibits inside the museum and we took quite some time to browse through all of them. There are some interesting items (for eg gifts given by Lee Hsien Loong to Sultan Bolkiah) and we did learn a bit of Bruneian history. However I wasn’t sure if I would pay to enter if they charge admission fees.

After leaving the museum, I went to get some food from Jollibee, a Filipino fast-food chain, while S went to Sultan Omar Ali Saifuddin Mosque for prayers. Effective time management indeed.

Rather empty (because of Ramadan?)

My cup of coke

Beef steak with rice - only remembered to take a picture halfway through the meal

I had to wait for a while before S returned from his prayers. It was by then time to return to the airport.

We were quite lucky to find that the bus to the airport was leaving soon when we arrived at the bus terminal.

Similarity between Singapore and Brunei: Bus 36 links the airport with the city centre

Pt I: Prologue
Pt II: Outbound (SIN – KUL – BWN)
Pt III: Brunei
Pt IV: Inbound (BWN – SIN – KUL)
Pt V: Epilogue

Despite being a weekend, I had to wake up at the usual time to make the 9.45am flight.

To reach the airport I first had to travel for three bus stops to Tampines Ave 1 where I would cross the road and catch bus 27.

While waiting for my second bus, my travel partner S sms-ed me that he had boarded 27 at his place. It turned out that I would take the one ahead of him.

About 30 minutes after stepping out of my front door, I alighted at the Airport Police Station stop.

Going to neither T2 nor T3 today

It’s actually the closest bus stop to the Budget Terminal (BT) and we would not need to go through all three terminals before taking the shuttle bus from T2.

Once S arrived around five minutes later, we crossed the expressway (using the underpass of course) and walked towards BT.

Not our favorite place to start a trip

Like every other terminals in SIN, BT was filled with travelers and their friends and families.

Early morning's BT

S asked me  why AirAsia chose to advertise in BT which it didn’t fly out of. Probably because it targets the same segment as TR?

As our flight still had some time before departing, the common check-in row was assigned to it (as well as to the other flights leaving around the same time).

Common check-in

After checking in we just hanged out on the landside for a while. Since I didn’t fancy anything from McD’s I got a 2 SGD sandwich from Han’s instead.

People-watching

The plastic seats landside weren’t very comfortable thus we decided to go air-side early.

I had some problems with the automated gate (just kept giving me the message “Processing…”) and the immigration official beckoned me to try the other one. No issues with the second one luckily.

Tang Wei greeting me after the security

Looking back at the security controls

I went to check out the FIDS while S preferred to chill at a comfortable seat.

FIDS:

No prize for guessing whose turf it is.

Then I window-shopped a bit in the shops. Was genuinely surprised that 7-Eleven is selling a 500ml bottle of mineral water at 2.30 SGD.

After browsing through the shops I found myself drawn to the computer terminals

Free internet

Restricted to 10 minute per use

After surfing some Facebook, I went to find S who had saved me a seat.

The first of my boarding passes:

Yay window seat!

At boarding time we made our way to Gate 10. The queue at the gate seemed to indicate a full flight.

Taken while in line to board

After boarding we noticed that one of the crew was actually Korean. Just couldn’t help but wonder whether she was recruited for Incheon Tiger Airways, a joined venture with Incheon Metropolitan City which never materialized.

My seat 19F was located just behind the wing.

SEair to CRK

It could definitely do with a paint job.

Its previous incarnation was actually Tiger

Actually Tiger Airways was in a partnership with SEAir. SEAir leases aircraft from Tiger Airways and operates the flights with its own pilots and crews. However Tiger Airways continues to market and sell the seats on the leased aircraft. This collaboration was kinda controversial and SEAir’s competitors in the Philippines had complained to the aviation authority.

While waiting for the rest to board I checked out what was inside the seat pocket.

Dog-eared safety card

tigerbites

Flight too short for these hot meals

Not sure about sandwiches though

Drinks & snacks definitely available

tigershop

tigertales

It turned out to be quite a good read but I didn’t have time to finish it during the short flight.

There was some other undesirable content in the seat pocket as well.

Weird stains and uncollected trash

In the meantime boarding had completed and our plane pushed back almost on time.

Bye SIN. Seeya tomorrow.

While waiting for our turn to take off, I spotted an Air Mauritius A330 arriving in SIN.

MK 646

Cabin crew doing one final check

Around 20 minutes after our scheduled departure, it was finally our turn to take to the skies.

Within minutes we were already in the Malaysian airspace.

See you soon

The captain came on the PA and provided us with some information. The flight time would be around 35 minutes and the crew managed to do one round of BOB sales. I didn’t notice anyone buying anything though.

About twenty minutes into the flight, the captain came on the PA again and informed that we were descending into KUL.

Flying over the palm trees

The taxi to the terminal seemed as long as the flight from Singapore.

En-route was the cargo terminal.

Korean Air Cargo's B747

Klas Kargo

Finally we reached KUL LCCT. Despite the slight delay during departure, we arrived almost exactly on the scheduled arrival time.

9M-XAC

A curious point is that although AirAsia X doesn’t fly to USA, 9M-XAC is painted with Oakland Raiders’ livery. This former Air Canada plane is one of the two A340s that AirAsia X uses for its flights to Europe and could be the one which takes me to ORY in October.

AirAsia's Thai Cousin HS-ABL

Quiet LCCT

Despite our best effort to beat the crowd, we were still caught in a long queue at the immigration.

Ever since Malaysia introduced the scanning of fingerprints at their checkpoints in June, it had taken much longer for foreigners to enter Malaysia. I already had a bad experience one month earlier at KUL main terminal where I took more than an hour to clear immigration.

It wasn’t so bad this time round as we were out on the landside 40 minutes after stepping off the plane. Traveling without check-in luggage definitely helped.

Walking to the Departure Terminal

Looking for my flight

Although I had checked in online earlier, I didn’t print out the boarding passes. We thought that we could do it at the self check-in kiosks.

Self check-in kiosks

We ran into some issues as the 2D barcode (e-mailed to us after we checked in online) only printed out S’s boarding pass. One of AirAsia’s ground staff attempted to help us but it yielded the same result. We were then directed to check in row R29 to get mine printed.

So much for OLCI

With our boarding passes in hand (finally), I thought that it would be a good idea to take advantage of the weaker MYR and get some lunch at KUL.

However the McD’s at the airport charged a premium for the location (probably due to the concession) so my meal of cheeseburger and coke (7.30 MYR) wasn’t as cheap as I expected.

Less than 90 minutes after entering Malaysia we were stamped out again.

Second boarding pass of the day

Gate area

Comparing LCCT to the seemingly under-utilized main terminal which I used a month ago, it felt overcrowded and claustrophobic. AirAsia desperately needed bigger facilities for its ever-expanding operations (especially AirAsia X’s) but the target completion date of KLIA2, the new low cost terminal, has been delayed till October 2012. I wondered what kind of impact it will have to the expansion of AirAsia group.

The passengers were invited to board around half an hour before the scheduled departure and I realized that our plane was the one painted with the Team Lotus livery.

9M-AFY

1Malaysia - hollow political talk

I managed to get S to give up 15A for me.

AK's getting into insurance business too

There were plenty of empty seats on this flight and between the two of us we had three seats.

Crew doing safety demonstration

None of the hot seats (with yellow covers) in front of us were taken.

I also noticed the cabin crew stationed closest to us had a Filipino flag on her name tag. Future crew of AirAsia Philippines undergoing training at parent company perhaps?

Some of the sightings during the taxi:

9M-AFE "ASEAN Basketball League"

D7 A330 9M-XXE

TG 416 to BKK

By the time it was our turn to take off, S had fallen into a deep slumber.

S woke up when the cabin crew was distributing Bruneian embarkation forms. He groggily asked me “We had taken off already?!” before going back to sleep again.

My 8th ASEAN country

250 ml of toilet water? Hmmm...

It was cloudy outside for most of the flight.

Over somewhere in the Peninsula

Time to check out the seat pocket.

Another dog-eared safety card

Pre-book your meals - looked very-tempting

Reverse side

SkyShop - very similar to Tiger's

Guide to web/mobile/self check-in

Reverse - Should have read it before the flight

The BOB menu:

AirAsia Cafe

A sense of deja vu as S was telling me about the dish earlier in the day

Good food photography

Tasty treats

Not exactly a deal I would say

Assorted snacks

Besides food there were other merchandise on offer on board as well.

Charity wrist bands and MotoGP merchandise

Limited Transformers items

Cars merchandise available as well

Model planes

AirAsia's knick-knacks

Save 1 MYR when you pre-book meals

AirAsia’s Travel3Sixty announced the good news.

I'm traveling on World's Best Low Cost Airline (According to Skytrax)

Skytrax is fast losing its credibility as even Hainan Airlines is rated a 5-star one.

RWS's advertisement

A nice touch

Interesting story about its cargo business

Cover story

Who wouldn't want this kind of service?

Is she a real air crew or just a model?

The PDF version is actually available on AirAsia’s website.

The sky remained cloudy as we flew over South China Sea.

Cloudy skies over South China Sea

I noticed that an elderly lady had invited herself to one of the hot seats. As they were emergency row seats, there was a sign which explicitly stated that no elderly (as well as children) could sit in them. However the cabin crew didn’t take any action to her as the passenger was fast asleep.

Good customer service or safety violation? I couldn’t decide.

The captain was on the PA requesting the crew to get ready for landing when I got my first glimpse of Brunei.

Borneo

Not traffic congestion as at KUL or SIN so we were poised for an on-time arrival.

The cabin crew did make the elderly lady return to her seat during landing.

Landing soon

After a short taxi, the plane arrived at Gate 8.

Leaving the aircraft

It turned out to be the furthest gate from the immigration controls.

Could it be that AirAsia managed to get the airport authorities at BWN to lower the charges and in return its flights would always get the furthest gate? Point to ponder.

Brunei in Jawi

Next arrival would be in two hours' time - unthinkable in either KUL or SIN

Ahead of us in the immigration controls were some Gurkha soldiers in desert fatigues. I believed that they were part of British Military Garrison Brunei and their commander seemed to be a British officer.

All looked ready to fight any enemies anytime. It was no wonder since one Gurkha could take out 30 Taliban insurgents on his own.

Just ahead of us in the queue was a Bangladeshi man and a roving Bruneian immigration official asked to see his visa. As the Bangladeshi man had a letter of employment, he was directed to a different counter (apparently for foreign workers entering Brunei). The immigration official seemed to be in two minds whether to approach my friend S who was of Indian descent.

In the end he chose to leave us alone and we were stamped into the country without any questions asked.

Exiting into the arrival area

Kinda cool to see Delifrance written in Jawi script

Pt I: Prologue
Pt II: Outbound (SIN – KUL – BWN)
Pt III: Brunei
Pt IV: Inbound (BWN – SIN – KUL)
Pt V: Epilogue

Impulse was probably what brought about this trip.

Several months ago (January in fact) AirAsia ran a promotion and one fare caught my attention.

KUL to BWN for 8 MYR o/w + taxes?? That got me interested and I went to sound out my friend S. Since neither of us had been to Brunei, we thought it could be a good idea to do a weekend trip there.

Dummy bookings revealed several weekends in August 2011 which fitted our schedule. My initial plan was to fly into KUL on a Saturday evening for an overnight stay and a day trip to BWN on a Sunday (Possible since there are two flights a day between the city-pair).

However S felt that we should stay at least one night in Borneo which got us to book the following flights:

The all-in fare came up to be 69 MYR, cheaper than the return bus ticket between Singapore and Kuala Lumpur.

Only after booking the ticket did S realize that it would be Ramadan when we were visiting and he would have to fast through the trip.

Fast forward to May when we realized that we should start thinking about how to get to KUL from SIN.

Of course we looked up usual suspects (AK, TR & 3K) and studied their fares and schedules carefully.

In the end price won out and we booked the following on Tiger Airways:

The outbound flight wasn’t too early and allowed us a comfortable connection. We faced a long-ish transit (~4h) on the inbound at KUL LCCT, a place that neither of us was particularly fond of.

However the price of 65.80 SGD a/i for SIN-KUL-SIN was the best that we could find and we saved on the convenience fee by using Diners Card for payment (promotion had since ended).

Our route will be this:

In all I thought that we did a pretty darn good job to get to Brunei and back for less than 100 SGD.