Have Perut Will Travel...: CGK Day 1 │ KLIA to Soekarno-Hatta • MH711 • It's Our 400th Video!

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Wednesday, 9 October 2024

CGK Day 1 │ KLIA to Soekarno-Hatta • MH711 • It's Our 400th Video!

Crossing Borders

The last time we used our passports was in January 2020. We had visited my sister Virginia in the UAE, before we even started our channel — and a few months later, the whole world shut down.

Our passports expired in December 2020, and with nowhere to go, we never renewed them. Around the same time, a deadly cluster was detected at our condo. The entire building was locked down, surrounded by barbed wire and guarded by army personnel with M16s.

The trauma made us reclusive and paranoid. We barely went out except for essential errands.

In April 2021, we slowly emerged from our shell and started our channel as a way to re enter society. Then in December 2021, Cat and I were infected with the virus. We were laid up for months before resuming content creation.

For the next couple of years, we focused on visiting every state in Malaysia — a journey that finally culminated in our recent day trip to Muar, Johor, the 13th and final state.

Only then did we feel ready to use our passports again.

Off to Jakarta

We bought our flight tickets to Jakarta during a recent MATTA Fair and got a good deal — RM858.00 (≈ USD182/EUR168) return each. With Brendan starting his postgraduate studies, this would be a couple’s trip.

We woke up at 4:00am, and an hour later Brendan drove us to the KL Sentral Departure Hall. Unfortunately, the KL City Air Terminal only opens at 6:00am.

So we made an executive decision: head straight to KLIA.

We walked across to catch the KLIA Express. We bought our tickets online and enjoyed RM10 off each, paying RM40.00 (≈ USD9/EUR8) per person.

The train departed KL Sentral at 5:40am and arrived at KLIA half an hour later. We rode the elevator up to the Departure floor — and mistakenly walked to the domestic Malaysia Airlines counters.

Realising our error, we made a beeline for the international counters instead.

Twenty minutes later, we checked in and dropped our luggage. We were due to board MH711 at 9:00am from Gate G6, so we headed to the Departure Hall.

We cleared Immigration and Customs smoothly, and by the time we emerged, it was 7:00am.

Pre Flight

We stopped at Dunkin’ Donuts for drinks. We both had the Spiced Chai Teh Tarik — mine hot, Cat’s iced. The total came to RM22.50 (≈ USD5/EUR4).

An hour later, we walked to Gate G6 and passed the final security checkpoint. Boarding began at 8:30am, and the last group boarded at 8:55am. The plane pushed back shortly after and took off at 9:05am.

Touchdown

The one and a half hour flight was uneventful. The plane began its descent at 10:25am, and MH711 touched down at 9:49am local time.

Kudos to Captain Andrew Ha and Chief Steward Mohammad Hamdan for an excellent flight.

We disembarked ten minutes later and headed to Carousel 2 to collect our luggage.

Welcome to Jakarta.