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Final Malaysia Blog -- Day 21 |
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Wednesday, 30 January 2008 |
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Home again! It’s a long and tiring trip, but in fact everything went quite smoothly and I arrived at Birmingham International Airport on Tuesday afternoon UK time, to be met by Cathy, about 18 hours after leaving KL.
Canon Fred David kindly drove me to the airport on Monday night, at about 11.00pm, together with Yoke Fong and Timothy. When I set out from the UK three weeks ago, it was with some hope that my bags would be lighter for the homeward journey. Some chance! I had flown out with a store of gifts and so on, including books, and it seemed quite possible that, even loaded up with souvenirs, the effect would be a net loss of weight. But I failed to anticipate the gifts I myself would be given – like the wooden shield of Kuching Cathedral, some locally woven cloth, and two or three weighty tomes, including a 600 page bicentennial history of the Anglican Diocese of West Malaysia! In the end, my suitcase was almost 50% heavier for the journey home. Check-in was straightforward however, once the suitcase had been categorised as ‘oversize’. The first flight (Emirates) left KLIA soon after 2.00am on Tuesday, for the seven hour flight to Dubai, where we arrived at 5.00am local time, having ‘gained’ four hours. I don’t find it easy to sleep on planes, even at that time of night. It was a crowded flight, and what with meals being served, flight announcements and the grumpy Dutchman two seats along, whose only English phrase seemed to be ‘Is there a problem?’. I fear I was almost certainly not the only one of his fellow passengers thinking, ‘Yup. You’. I had a two and a half hour stopover in Dubai, which passed quickly – due partly to the free internet access to which I was able to hook-up on my laptop. The second flight left there at 8.00am local time (4.00am UK time), for the eight hour trip to Brum. This was as good as airtravel gets. It was a huge plane, but only 1/3 full. I know this is bad news from the point of view of climate change etc; but from a purely selfish passenger perspective, it was a dream. I moved from my allotted seat to a row of three free seats beside an emergency door (with all the extra leg-room that affords). It meant that when meals arrived, I wasn’t scrunched up behind the fold-down tray in my own seat, but could spread out. It meant I could stretch my legs at will. It meant the staff had time to spare. Most passengers lay down across several seats to sleep. I couldn’t resist the uninterrupted study time, and set to work on a writing project instead. We were a little late landing in Birmingham, touching down at about 12.15pm. My suitcase turned up in baggage reclaim (always a relief, and never taken for granted). My heart sank when a customs officer called me to one side in the ‘Nothing to Declare’; but after he’d asked just a couple of questions about my trip and flight details he waved me through. I was back in the Close in Lichfield by 1.30pm. By then I’d been awake for far too long (about 40 hours), but all the advice from more seasoned travellers is to keep going until bed-time local time, so I propped myself up with lashings of coffee. By 8.30 Iwas nodding off even while standing upright, so headed for bed and slept for a glorious 11 hours. No doubt there’ll be a little more jetlag today, but I’ve got no appointments to deal with and I’m hoping that by tomorrow I’ll be over the worst. It was a wonderful experience, but I’m glad to be home.
Pete
Wednesday 26 January 2008
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Life & Work 
