Wednesday, June 16, 2010

Kota Kinabalu, and my Return Flight




This is a road in Kota Kinabalu. It’s called Jalan Dua Puluh 3.

But why is it written as Jalan Dua Puluh 3, and not Jalan Dua Puluh Tiga or Jalan 23? (For the uninitiated, Dua Puluh means twenty three in Malay.)

There is another road in the city – a larger one – called Jalan Dua Puluh. Not sure if the two roads were related in one way or another. However, I didn’t see Jalan Dua Puluh 1 or Jalan Dua Puluh 2.

Maybe someone familiar with the city could explain to us the origin of the road…

= = = = = = = =

When I flew back from Kota Kinabalu to Kuala Lumpur on May 23, 2010, AirAsia’s computer system was down for several hours. Check-in process was done manually, and I waited one hour before I was served. The counter could not issue computer-generated boarding pass. Instead, I was given a hand-written boarding pass, as shown in the picture.

As you might expect, the flight was delayed. The plane left the terminal at 7.20pm, being 50 minutes late.

The plane finally took off. I was hungry, and wanted to have my dinner. Since AirAsia was a budget airline, meal was not complimentary, but had to be bought separately. Disappointingly, the cabin crew announced that the plane was running out of food. All they had were cup noodle and chocolate bars, and drinks. Not interested in the ‘snacks’, I decided to starve until I reach destination. But the stewardess was still trying to persuade me to spend my hard-earn money. “Aren’t you hungry?” she asked. WTF.

The flight was definitely not a pleasant one, but I had no complaint. At least I reached home safely…


14 comments:

  1. Sounds like you flew at the wrong time. :/ Must be hard for you aye.

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  2. They should at least offer a very small snack for free! That's cheap.

    I've never had a handwritten boarding pass :-P

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  3. Yeah, they should just leave travellers to decide for themselves instead of nudging them. Maybe she was just being friendly and concerned, but still best to leave travellers alone, eh?

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  4. Oh dear.. delay and NO food? What a shame! Sometimes it happens with AirAsia, unfortunately..

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  5. Air stewardess earn commission from inflight food maybe?

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  6. tekkaus
    Yeah, wrong time. But this is not uncommon.

    Zhu
    We can't really expect too much from budget airline.

    happysurfer
    Not sure if she was friendly and concerned.

    witch
    We complain about AirAsia, but in the end still can't live without it, LOL...

    shingo
    Earn commission from in-flight food? Maybe...

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  7. yeah...i got bad experience too with airasia...

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  8. This is surely a creative way to spell the street name. Sorry to hear about the bad air travel experience. Anyway, food on board flights are never tasty.

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  9. what??? food also they hard sell?!

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  10. vialentino
    Who never have bad experience with AirAsia?

    Autumn Belle
    AirAsia's food is worse than the rest, but I was hungry then.

    xin
    And they are still telling us:
    No outside food allowed!

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  11. Last April took a MAS flight from AS to JB ended up in Singapore due to heavy rain and the flight could not land safety at Senai, I guess sometimes this happens in life....:D

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  12. Air Asia is virgin Air from Asia.. hmm i only dontreally agree with the noodles. and sometimes the system down bady but its ok for budget traveller like me... a hippy

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  13. Grass
    Yeah, delay is normal. But at least AirAsia should have sufficient food.

    Aj
    My employer wanted to save money, so we all became budget traveler, LOL...

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  14. u got me wondering about the dua puluh 3 heh

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