This trip starts with another one of my regular visits to family in hometown Kuching, but it will be more special as I’ll spend Chinese New Year there with them. And on the way back, I’ll do a detour to Pulau Natuna, an island in the South China Sea that is now part of Indonesia. And finally witness the Thaipusam festival in Singapore.
Kim dropped me off at the airport 2h prior to my AirAsia X departure to Kuala Lumpur via Gold Coast. The queue was long but as I was flying Premium Flatbed, I only had one person ahead of me. Quite unusually, I had 36kg of luggage comprising of a dozen wine, some cheese, cooling bricks and a few other goodies for family. Gotta make the most of the 40kg luggage allowance!
I sat and did admin on my computer for most of the flight to Gold Coast where the stopover formalities were rather painless. It involved just a security screen before heading to the departure gate for a brief wait before reboarding for Kuala Lumpur.