Friday, 29 April 2011
KUL-AMSAll By Myself
It’s the day of the Royal Wedding aka the Wedding of the Year but I was too busy preparing for my trip. I couldn’t help wondering how Wills was feeling throughout the ceremony. Did he miss his mum? I can barely cope as it is. Miss her every day but especially today.
Seeing it was Friday evening and start of the long May Day weekend, I asked Abah to drop me off at the Ampang LRT station. Took the train to Bandar Tasik Selatan where I changed for the KLIA Transit. There was a concert at the Bukit Jalil stadium hence the train was quite full.
Reached KLIA at 9.33 pm and dropped off my bag. Wasn’t in a shopping mood so didn’t browse the duty free shops. My heart sank when I saw the queue at the boarding gate. It was going to be a full flight...
It was an uneventful flight thankfully. The families with their small children were seated in the area behind ours so there wasn’t any problem with wailing kids. But that didn’t mean I could sleep anyway *sigh* but I’ve never been more thankful that I’m vertically challenged judging from the discomfort endured by my super extra tall neighbour.
Saturday, 30 April 2011
AMS-BRU; BRU-TUN; TUN-Sousse
We landed at Amsterdam Schiphol at 5.35 am (earlier than the scheduled time of 0555). There were a few flights also arriving around the same time so I hurried to the immigration. See, I needed to catch a train from Schiphol to Brussels National Airport. There are two train services: the first train at 0707 would arrive at 1010 but cost a lot less compared to the next train at 0731 which would arrive at 0943. I needn’t have worried as I had ample time to go through immigration, be united with my bag, freshen up and buy the said train ticket.
There weren’t too many people at the check-in counter at the airport but those ahead of me sure took a long time there. They seemed content to share their life story with the check-in personnel. As a result, I had to wait a while before I could check in.
While there was a sign for free WiFi after immigration, it turned out that it wasn’t free after all. Duh! Why put that sign in the first place then?
Our flight out of BRU was slightly delayed and consequently, we only landed at Tunis Carthage Airport at 2 pm. I changed money at the airport (rate is €1=TND1.94). I then waited for the bus 35 to the city. The fare cost less than a dinar. Oh and by the way, I didn’t get any mobile network coverage in Tunisia.
From the bus stop, I went to find the main train station at Place de Barcelone. It was more difficult to ask for directions in Tunisia than in Morocco despite both being French colonies. It was frustrating and I finally arrived at the train station after walking about a km, including back-tracking, avoiding the metro train (it’s called the metro but the trains are above ground, like trams) and hauling my bag up and down the stupid stairs. Bought a first-class train ticket to Sousse for less than TND11 (a second class ticket cost only 3 dinars less or so), left my bag at the station and headed for the medina.
It started drizzling when I reached the medina which turned out to be a moderate rain, well, heavy enough to cause a flash flood in the medina. It was so not fun, getting drenched and having to avoid the water (I didn’t want to get water into my shoes). The rain finally let up but I couldn’t seem to find any landmarks that I was looking for. I was about to leave when I sighted a landmark and headed there.
A man approached me and offered to show me the way (turned out he was a guide. And we know what this means... His directions didn’t come free of course). Still, I was pleased that I managed to locate the landmarks I wanted to find except one or two. And oh boy, do the Tunis men love their cigarettes. Cancer sticks were sold almost everywhere, even in the medina! And they smoked indiscriminately too, even in public places.
I hurried back to the train station and started to panic when I missed a few turns. I finally managed to locate the station about 20 minutes before the train was scheduled to depart. Now first class it might be but it looked more like second class. Wonder how much worse second class was.
We reached Sousse just after 9 pm. I followed my instinct and found the hotel on my first attempt. Fancy that. My room was apartment-style with a kitchenette and eating area. However, I spotted some small cockroaches and I ended up killing a few while I was there.
So, that was four cities in three different countries/continents in in 24 hours. All in a day’s work... not bad eh.
To be continued
KUL-AMSAll By Myself
It’s the day of the Royal Wedding aka the Wedding of the Year but I was too busy preparing for my trip. I couldn’t help wondering how Wills was feeling throughout the ceremony. Did he miss his mum? I can barely cope as it is. Miss her every day but especially today.
Seeing it was Friday evening and start of the long May Day weekend, I asked Abah to drop me off at the Ampang LRT station. Took the train to Bandar Tasik Selatan where I changed for the KLIA Transit. There was a concert at the Bukit Jalil stadium hence the train was quite full.
Reached KLIA at 9.33 pm and dropped off my bag. Wasn’t in a shopping mood so didn’t browse the duty free shops. My heart sank when I saw the queue at the boarding gate. It was going to be a full flight...
It was an uneventful flight thankfully. The families with their small children were seated in the area behind ours so there wasn’t any problem with wailing kids. But that didn’t mean I could sleep anyway *sigh* but I’ve never been more thankful that I’m vertically challenged judging from the discomfort endured by my super extra tall neighbour.
Saturday, 30 April 2011
AMS-BRU; BRU-TUN; TUN-Sousse
We landed at Amsterdam Schiphol at 5.35 am (earlier than the scheduled time of 0555). There were a few flights also arriving around the same time so I hurried to the immigration. See, I needed to catch a train from Schiphol to Brussels National Airport. There are two train services: the first train at 0707 would arrive at 1010 but cost a lot less compared to the next train at 0731 which would arrive at 0943. I needn’t have worried as I had ample time to go through immigration, be united with my bag, freshen up and buy the said train ticket.
There weren’t too many people at the check-in counter at the airport but those ahead of me sure took a long time there. They seemed content to share their life story with the check-in personnel. As a result, I had to wait a while before I could check in.
While there was a sign for free WiFi after immigration, it turned out that it wasn’t free after all. Duh! Why put that sign in the first place then?
Our flight out of BRU was slightly delayed and consequently, we only landed at Tunis Carthage Airport at 2 pm. I changed money at the airport (rate is €1=TND1.94). I then waited for the bus 35 to the city. The fare cost less than a dinar. Oh and by the way, I didn’t get any mobile network coverage in Tunisia.
From the bus stop, I went to find the main train station at Place de Barcelone. It was more difficult to ask for directions in Tunisia than in Morocco despite both being French colonies. It was frustrating and I finally arrived at the train station after walking about a km, including back-tracking, avoiding the metro train (it’s called the metro but the trains are above ground, like trams) and hauling my bag up and down the stupid stairs. Bought a first-class train ticket to Sousse for less than TND11 (a second class ticket cost only 3 dinars less or so), left my bag at the station and headed for the medina.
It started drizzling when I reached the medina which turned out to be a moderate rain, well, heavy enough to cause a flash flood in the medina. It was so not fun, getting drenched and having to avoid the water (I didn’t want to get water into my shoes). The rain finally let up but I couldn’t seem to find any landmarks that I was looking for. I was about to leave when I sighted a landmark and headed there.
A man approached me and offered to show me the way (turned out he was a guide. And we know what this means... His directions didn’t come free of course). Still, I was pleased that I managed to locate the landmarks I wanted to find except one or two. And oh boy, do the Tunis men love their cigarettes. Cancer sticks were sold almost everywhere, even in the medina! And they smoked indiscriminately too, even in public places.
I hurried back to the train station and started to panic when I missed a few turns. I finally managed to locate the station about 20 minutes before the train was scheduled to depart. Now first class it might be but it looked more like second class. Wonder how much worse second class was.
We reached Sousse just after 9 pm. I followed my instinct and found the hotel on my first attempt. Fancy that. My room was apartment-style with a kitchenette and eating area. However, I spotted some small cockroaches and I ended up killing a few while I was there.
So, that was four cities in three different countries/continents in in 24 hours. All in a day’s work... not bad eh.
To be continued
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