People travel for different reasons. For some, traveling allows them to explore new cultures and experiences to widen their perspective. There are others who travel purely for business, and there are those who travel purely for pleasure (and a few lucky ones who manage to do both at the same time). There are those whose trips won’t be complete if they don’t go shopping, and there are those who can’t live by without taking a snapshot of every nook and corner he or she goes to.

For me, I’ve discovered that I travel because (1) I want to see how people in other places live their everyday lives; and (2) I travel to eat. Photography, as I’ve found out in this latest trip, is just incidental to the entire thing.

This trip to Malaysia was funded almost entirely by my friend Ann aka. this blog’s resident Psychic. This is only her second trip outside the Philippines (the first being a trip to Bangkok with a few officemates last February, which she didn’t fully enjoy) and the first time for her nephew and his new bride so she asked me to accompany them. She availed of the Air Asia promo from last year and got tickets priced at just below php400 (less than USD10) one way, inclusive of fuel surcharges. She took care of my airfare and accommodations; the only thing I have to pay for are travel tax, terminal fee and pocket money. How could I say ‘no’ to that?

We spent the past 6 months researching about Kuala Lumpur and Kota Kinabalu, and that’s where I fully realized what my interests are when it comes to travel. I declined to take the HOHO bus because the stops were almost nothing but museums, and I have no interest in museums. One museum trip is enough for me. (It is for this same reason why I don’t take the Seoul City Bus Tour: because one palace and/or museum visit is good enough for me.) I don’t have to enter mosques, because I’m fine with just looking at the facade. I don’t mind if I don’t climb the Petronas Towers or the KL Tower. Why should I look at the view from up there when the towers themselves are the view? In short, I’m not really a “I must go to as many tourist spots as possible!” kind of traveler. I’m more interested at taking my time observing what the locals do in their everyday lives, which is also the reason why I am drawn to visiting shopping places. Not because I want to shop, but because shopping is a culture in itself. I was amused at the amount of information I gathered just from hanging out at shopping malls.

Of course, the other stuff that I took note in my research are the must-go places to eat.

And with that long introduction, I commence blogging about my trip to Malaysia.

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Air Asia flies to Kuala Lumpur or Kota Kinabalu from Diosdado Macapagal International Airport (DMIA) in Clark, Angeles City instead of NAIA in Metro Manila. I had the choice between taking the Philtranco bus with Ann, Jun and Joyce from Megamall, or asking my parents to take me to DMIA which is such a hassle because it’s not exactly near my place (I think it’s further than NAIA, distance-wise) and commuting from my house to there is not as easy. But it’s much more hassle to go all the way to Megamall and be there before 6:30am, which means I have to leave the house before 5:00am whereas I can leave at 7:00am if we drive from my house get to DMIA by 9:00 in time for our 11:40am flight. Good thing my parents agreed, as long as I pay for gas and toll fees. It cost a little more than commuting but much more convenient for me.

We reached DMIA at exactly 9:00am, just as Ann and Co. were being let inside the airport. Apparently, DMIA is so small that departing passengers must be let in by batches. If you arrived too early for your flight (which they did), you would have to wait outside. There’s a roofed section with seats just across the main gate that serves as the waiting area. There are some food stalls and a Jollibee there in case you want to grab a bite while waiting. There are food stalls and a coffee shop inside the airport, too, but as in all airports, everything there is severely overpriced, as we have painfully discovered later.

The system in DMIA is a bit different from NAIA Terminal 3 (note to non-Pinoys: both these airports serve low-cost carriers like Cebu Pacific and Air Asia). Since they won’t let passengers in until 1 1/2 hours before departure time, passengers would have to go straight to the check-in counters from the initial security check. Unlike in NAIA Terminal 3, they don’t require passengers to present their travel tax receipts before check-in (I’m just not sure, though, if this is DMIA or Air Asia policy). We were issued our boarding passes even if we haven’t paid for the travel tax yet, unlike in NAIA T3/Cebu Pac where they will hold your boarding pass until you paid the tax. We paid for the travel tax after we have checked our luggage in, and then we proceeded to the terminal fee counters. There’s a guard there who will check first if the passenger has already paid the travel tax before we were allowed to queue to pay for the terminal fee. After that, the passenger goes straight to Passport Control. And one thing I noted at DMIA is that the Immigration Officers seem to be more “chatty” than the IOs at NAIA, but in a good way. You won’t feel threatened at all. They would require you to present your return ticket, though, so always keep that in hand until you’ve passed Immigration.

Ok, Immigration? Cleared. We still have time so we decided to eat before boarding because we shall be arriving KL at 3:40pm and we don’t want to pay for in-flight meals. Which turned out to be a very wrong idea. For one thing, we discovered on our flight back from Kota to Clark that Air Asia’s in-flight meals are not just reasonably priced, they also taste good. For another thing, we made the mistake of eating at the coffee shop because we wanted to have some “real food”. The lack of a menu with a price should’ve been a decent enough warning. Seriously: a plate of adobo and a can of Coke for php290.00? Are they nuts???

Just for reference: Air Asia’s nasi lemak costs RM9, and a can of Coke costs RM5. Convert that to PHP, it’s roughly 210.00. Almost a hundred pesos difference, and the in-flight meal tastes infinitely better.

Finally, it’s boarding time. There’s no tube so we had to walk the tarmac towards our plane. And it’s such a long walk, too. I wonder how things are when it’s raining? There were some Air Asia ground crew with a rack of umbrellas at the boarding gates; I don’t know if those are free to use when it’s raining or they sell it? Anyway, the cool thing about this is that taking photos at the tarmac is allowed at DMIA (and at KL-LCCT, too). And as most Filipinos are, a few Pinoy passengers were late for boarding because they were still busy posing in front of the plane for that Kodak moment. Ann’s nephew Jun was seriously contemplating on posing in front of the turbine. Meanwhile, I was trying to act cool but I couldn’t resist taking a few shots because the skyline looks awesome.

Ok, so we’re inside the plane. Sorry if I couldn’t help but make comparisons with Cebu Pacific since they’re both low-cost airlines, but I have to say that Air Asia planes PWNS Cebu Pacific planes by a mile. The first thing I noticed is that air conditioning actually works in Air Asia planes. It was so cold that we needed a jacket. Second, the seats definitely have more legroom. Third, the engines aren’t as noisy (we had one Cebu Pac flight where we got monstrous headaches from both the loud engine sounds and the fear that the plane might disintegrate any moment). The only plus point for Cebu Pac are the armrests. Air Asia’s armrests were so hard, my elbows hurt after about an hour. But if your elbows are covered, that shouldn’t be an issue.

We slept the entire flight, with me waking up when the smell of airline food wafted the air. There’s another plus point for Air Asia: at least they sell real food instead of that crap that Cebu Pac passes for airline meals. If you’re gonna make us pay, at least make us pay for good food, Cebu Pacific!

The flight was marred with turbulence as we were in the middle of rainy season here. I felt like I was riding a roller coaster. I just tried to sleep it off or else I’ll get nauseous. A couple more hours later and the pilot announced that we’ll be landing in KL 20 minutes ahead of schedule. I guess they went Speed Racer on the turbulence, then?

In fairness to Cebu Pacific, their pilots land planes much, much better. Well, not to be patting my own countrymen in the back or whatever, but I’ve flown in different airlines and I must say that Filipino pilots are the best airplane drivers in the world, especially during take-off and landing.

(To be continued. It’s past 4:00am and I must sleep.)

Next: Selamat Datang ke Kuala Lumpur! (hopefully I got this right)

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This entry was posted on Monday, July 26th, 2010 at 4:27 am and is filed under Food Trip, Travelogue. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.