Monday, January 09, 2017

Persian Trip: First Leg – The Longest Night of the Year

I had dreamt of going to Iran (among other places) for some time but either didn’t come across any travel agent offering Iranian tours (maybe also as I wasn’t actively looking for one previously) or already had other places planned. After Jordan and Lebanon and having had to cancel my umrah plan in December, I thought it was time for me to finally set foot in Iran and so at the MATTA Fair in September 2016, looked for tours to go there. I only managed to find two companies offering tours to Iran but one company’s tour was in early December and only covered Tehran and Isfahan. The other company’s tour was in end-December which suited me just fine and also covered Shiraz. The only drawback was the cost which I thought was quite exorbitant at almost 10 grand. But Iran still lacks tourism infrastructure – also readily admitted by our local tour guide, Amin – so for now it’s best to join a tour.

Wednesday, 21 December 2016/Dongzhi/Winter Solstice

Today was winter solstice or dongzhi. It is hence the shortest day of the year for us in the Northern Hemisphere or the longest night of the year. I left home at 16:00 in the hot afternoon sun and after performing prayers at Le Meridien, took the 17:30 bus from KL Sentral to KLIA. There was a brief crawl along a stretch of the highway but we managed to arrive at KLIA at 18:30 and I immediately headed for counter K10 to check in. After meeting Nit, I went to clear immigration as I wanted to perform prayers before boarding. The announcement to board came on before I was anywhere near the prayer room so I rushed to the bathroom and then to the prayer room before heading to gate C37.




We boarded the plane and settled down. I had asked for a seat change to 18A. It was warm for a while until the AC was turned on and before long, some passengers were already dozing off. Our ETD was at 20:20 and when it was 20:45 and we were still on the ground, the captain made an announcement apologising for the delay and said there was a technical problem. I spotted a ground crew in the plane and wondered how serious the problem was.

21:00 came and we were starting to get restless. I got up to use the bathroom in Business Class (and not ticked off for doing so) and overhead some argument between the cabin crew. Funny, I thought, surely the ground crew would perform a thorough check before any one flight is allowed to take off.

Then there was an announcement for us to disembark and for us to bring all our bags down. The announcement was repeated a few times and people had all stood up and opened the overhead compartments for their bags but the door was still closed. Everyone around me was agitated, everyone had a connecting flight to catch later on in Doha and I overheard one of the cabin crew trying to calm those questioning her. ‘I have another flight too, tomorrow,’ she said, and ‘I’m sorry but we cannot serve you the food even if we’re not flying,’ to another query.

We made our way back into the boarding gate wearily. I looked at the clock there, it was 21:50 then. I had called my dad at least twice by then to update him of the situation. We sat down and then we heard they would provide us with food vouchers. There was another long queue to get the food vouchers (I had checked the inflight magazine and noted that the flight could carry about 340 passengers or so. I stand corrected though). We were only allowed to go to Burger King and the voucher value was RM25. Nit misplaced her boarding pass and I had to wait for a new one to be issued before they could release the food voucher so of course by the time I went up to Burger King, there were at least 100 others ahead of me. Nit had told me to get her some burger as she wanted to work. Well, what do you know, I ended up queuing for 50 minutes before I reached the counter. The Burger King staff had all looked stressed and harassed too by then. Me, my legs were already shaking and quivering from all that standing. Nit was surprised to see me return with two burgers, she thought I had already eaten. Well, no, I just spent 50 minutes of my life queuing up for fast food. I only persevered as I hadn’t had any dinner. There was an announcement saying the plane was ready for boarding while I was 15 minutes into the queue and I did consider if I should abandon the queue and head for the gate but I looked around and saw fellow passengers so I decided to stick to the queue. Our tour leader, Christine, also came while I was queuing and told us to just take the food and if we had to get drinks, to drink quickly.

We gobbled up the food and hurried to the boarding gate. Nit overheard someone saying the flight was cancelled. Say what?! I had by then decided to treat the situation as hilarious. The flight was cancelled but we were to remain in the boarding gate until they sorted out accommodation for us. Christine informed that we might be allocated Everly Hotel in Putrajaya.

Thursday, 22 December 2016

Finally, we were told to make our way out and collect our bags at the carousel. We trudged back, took the aerotrain and went through immigration again and made our way to the carousel. There was another long wait until they told us which carousel to collect our bags from. The cabin crew emerged and guess what, they had their bags out first!

We waited and waited and waited. I saw the pilot and co-pilot coming our way. Christine approached them and asked what the problem was but they didn’t want to share. Our bags were out finally and we were told to go to Level 1 where there would be buses to ferry us to the hotels.

As we were the first ones out, Christine told us to fill up the first bus first (naturally) as it would depart at 02:30 so we loaded our bags ourselves and got on the bus. The bus was all filled up by our group and some other independent travellers by 02:30. However, there was an argument: the driver said he was assigned to drive to the hotels in Putrajaya and that it turned out that we would not be going to Everly Hotel after all but to Grand Dorsett in Subang Jaya. At that point, I was too exhausted to care and although Christine was arguing to the driver that we should get the Everly Hotel rooms, I told her it didn’t matter. I just wanted to rest my weary self just like the others. After much argument, the driver relented and drove us off at 03:00. I know because there was a digital clock at the front of the bus. It was indeed the longest night of the year.

I dozed off and woke up to snatches of conversation between Christine and the driver. He informed that a China Airlines flight was turned back three hours into its flight due to the bad smog at the Chinese destination and that another airline was also cancelled just days before. I also overheard that other hotels are also utilised like Eastin Hotel but for the cabin crew.

We finally reached Grand Dorsett at 03:50. I quickly grabbed my bag and went to the counter, sticking closely to Christine and a good strategy too as I got the second double room assigned to our busload of passengers so we were already in the room by 04:00. It was a beautiful hotel and our room was perfect; if only we didn’t have to check in under those circumstances! Sleep didn’t come that easily but when I next opened my eyes, it was almost bright outside and I hurried to perform morning prayers.

We were going to have a lie-in but the phone rang at 08:30. Wake-up call. Apparently breakfast would be served until 10:00 so I had a quick shower and went downstairs.

There was still no update so after breakfast and studying Google map of the area, I decided to go for a walk to Subang Parade. Ugh, to think I actually went there before in those days! I left in a hurry and lost my way twice returning to the hotel. Nit called me and informed that lunch would be provided until 14:30 and that we would be departing the hotel at 15:30 back for KLIA.

I decided to have a late lunch as I wasn’t sure how early/late my dinner would be. I met the young airport ground crew who told me he was new to the job and ill-prepared for it. He said the airline should take responsibility but was very vague about arrangements and he had to keep referring to his boss on the next steps. While the 24 of us were lucky to get seats on Qatar for that evening, some others had to be bumped on to Emirates and Etihad. Poor chap. Imagine, he was in the clothes he was in the day before.

We left at 15:30 in the rain and reached KLIA an hour later. I saw a few groups of Indonesian umrah pilgrims camping out at KLIA. I wonder how long they had been there; surely they were assigned accommodation for the evening before?

There was another delay and we were to take off at 20:20 but the flight was retimed to 21:15 due to the late arrival of the flight QR0848 from Doha. We finally took off and everyone breathed out a collective sigh of relief...

We landed at Doha at midnight and went on to Terminal D for our next flight.


To be continued