Airport Drama

I successfully made it home in one piece, although there were several interesting things that happened along the way. I think that this is probably the most eventful flight that I had ever been on. So, I thought that I’d share a few of the things that had happened on that fateful day.

It all started with the coach ride to the airport. When we left Stansted, the coach driver informed us that all reports indicate that the traffic situation was fine and we should arrive at Heathrow by 7pm, which gave me 3 whole hours to get myself checked in, have a light dinner and then fly off home. However, fortune was not as kind and it rained heavily causing the M25 to jam up. Therefore, by the time the coach arrived at Heathrow, it was already well past 8pm.

So, I quickly rushed to the check in counter and had my luggage weighed. I was really unfortunate and got an extremely unhelpful person at the check in counter. He even asked that I weigh my hand luggage and he added all that to the total combined weight. This resulted in an additional 20kg and I had to go to the service counter at the other end of the terminal to check the price. When I was told that my excess luggage would cost almost £900, I balked. That was the price of two whole tickets!

I was hungry, tired, late and now this. So, I decided to dump all my clothes. I sat in the middle of the terminal and started tossing almost everything out except for my suit. I thought that for RM7,000 I could easily afford an entirely new wardrobe of clothes. So, I tossed everything out including the few nice barong shirts that I had. This got my weight reduced by about 7kg but it was still too heavy.

But I met the same unreasonable counter staff again. He told me that I was still over by 10kg but that I would have to pay 15kg of excess. I could not understand this logic and called his supervisor over to discuss this with. After some reasoning, the supervisor decided to raise my baggage allowance and only charge me for an extra 5kg, which came up to about £200. This I gladly paid as I could possibly get it reimbursed by my sponsor later.

After checking into the flight, I decided to go back to the place where I tossed my clothes to collect them and properly dispose of them. But by the time that I got there, the place had already been thoroughly cleared. I guess that passengers tossing their clothes must be a very common thing and the efficient airport staff and already disposed off it on my behalf. So, I went through security and got on my way.

While in the departure hall, an elderly Malay man came over to sit with me. So, I struck up a conversation with him which invariably led to the talk of Malaysian politics, which is quite interesting at the moment. But I noticed several people staring at me with an evil eye when I was chatting with the elderly chap. Then, I finally asked him what he did for a living and he told me that he was the MP for Bukit Gantang, one of our opposition politicians. He promised me that they would seize power by September 16 and I reminded him that it has to be done legally.

Then, as I boarded the plane, I ended up sitting next to a young girl that looked extremely familiar. So, I asked her if she was a Part II engineering student at Cambridge and she said that she was. So, I asked her what she was doing going to Malaysia and she said that she was going home. This kind of shocked me as I didn’t ever realise that she was Malaysian. I can chalk this up as another random Malaysian whom I know, that no one else knows. So, at the very least, I had someone else to talk to during the flight and it wasn’t as dull or boring a 12 hours as I thought it would be.

So, anyway, I’m back!