Kuala Lumpur Day One: Arrival
This is day one of my trip to Malaysia, which came just on the heels of my trip to Viet Nam.
Tuesday, time to pull a John McCain (a.k.a., getting the hell out of 'Nam). Taxi to the airport to fly to Bangkok for a connecting flight to Kuala Lumpur. Or at least, what we thought was a connecting flight.
The trouble started when AirAsia's Hanoi desk told us that we had to check our bag, and they couldn’t check it through to Kuala Lumpur. Or check us in for that flight. We pointed out that we only had 40 minutes to make the connection, and would not have time to go through Thai immigration, get our bag from the luggage carousel, and go back through Thai immigration again. They pretended they didn't understand English. Finally, we found a guy who sympathized, and he said we could gate-check our bag.
When we arrived in Bangkok, the flight crew revealed that they had no idea what gate checking was. As per the Hanoi manager's instructions, we explained that our bag was in "Hold One". Eventually we got the bag, and tried to make our way to our gate. Oops, turns out no--Air Asia is a "point-to-point carrier", which is code for "no connecting flights". They would not give us boarding passes until we left the airport and came in again. Sux0red.
With fifteen minutes until our flight's departure, they radioed ahead to keep a lane at the ticket counter open for us while we ran as fast as we could through Thai immigration and customs ("How long will you be staying in Thailand?" "Five minutes."). We got there to discover that our flight was delayed 30 minutes, possibly to wait for us, we're not sure. Boarding passes in hand, we discovered we had to pay Thai departure tax again. After a long wait for the ATM, we got our baht, paid the fee, sailed through immigration, and ran through four miles of duty-free shops (sorry, "shoppes") to get to our gate. I set off the metal detector and had to be wanded, but it was OK because we did the thing where you skip the whole line by showing the attendant a boarding pass that says you board half an hour ago.
We got to our gate just as boarding was starting. They were actually pre-boarding (children, people with disabilities, and monks (really)). The airline staff scolded us that we should make sure to leave three hours between flights next time, but why would we when this worked so well?
And that's how I made it to Kuala Lumpur. Continue reading about my Malaysian adventure.
Tuesday, time to pull a John McCain (a.k.a., getting the hell out of 'Nam). Taxi to the airport to fly to Bangkok for a connecting flight to Kuala Lumpur. Or at least, what we thought was a connecting flight.
The trouble started when AirAsia's Hanoi desk told us that we had to check our bag, and they couldn’t check it through to Kuala Lumpur. Or check us in for that flight. We pointed out that we only had 40 minutes to make the connection, and would not have time to go through Thai immigration, get our bag from the luggage carousel, and go back through Thai immigration again. They pretended they didn't understand English. Finally, we found a guy who sympathized, and he said we could gate-check our bag.
When we arrived in Bangkok, the flight crew revealed that they had no idea what gate checking was. As per the Hanoi manager's instructions, we explained that our bag was in "Hold One". Eventually we got the bag, and tried to make our way to our gate. Oops, turns out no--Air Asia is a "point-to-point carrier", which is code for "no connecting flights". They would not give us boarding passes until we left the airport and came in again. Sux0red.
With fifteen minutes until our flight's departure, they radioed ahead to keep a lane at the ticket counter open for us while we ran as fast as we could through Thai immigration and customs ("How long will you be staying in Thailand?" "Five minutes."). We got there to discover that our flight was delayed 30 minutes, possibly to wait for us, we're not sure. Boarding passes in hand, we discovered we had to pay Thai departure tax again. After a long wait for the ATM, we got our baht, paid the fee, sailed through immigration, and ran through four miles of duty-free shops (sorry, "shoppes") to get to our gate. I set off the metal detector and had to be wanded, but it was OK because we did the thing where you skip the whole line by showing the attendant a boarding pass that says you board half an hour ago.
We got to our gate just as boarding was starting. They were actually pre-boarding (children, people with disabilities, and monks (really)). The airline staff scolded us that we should make sure to leave three hours between flights next time, but why would we when this worked so well?
And that's how I made it to Kuala Lumpur. Continue reading about my Malaysian adventure.
posted by arie at 7:41 AM
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