Above: Scenery as we descend. I’m guessing this is near Sekinchan in northern Selangor, or somewhere in southern Perak.
A very light flight
Walking through the departure area to the gate, there were no water fountains available anywhere airside (but I saw one landside) to refill my empty bottle for the long flight. Our PCR tests were checked at the gate once and our boarding passes stamped.
We boarded the 777-300 shortly after 0100 for the 0145 departure to Kuala Lumpur. The passenger load was very light. I would later realise that in the first two Economy cabins, everyone had a row of triple seats. In the third cabin where I was seated, there were only 8 passengers! Never mind the fact that Turkish configures their aircraft in a generous 9-across layout as opposed to the now common 10-across.
Just as we were closing the doors, my friend Alice messaged saying that I had received my approval to enter Sarawak. I had asked her to help chase the application for me since my flight timing coincided with the entire work day in Sarawak. But she must have called them at 0645 in the morning!
After the meal service, I took half a pill and slept for 2h and dozed for a further 1h30. I was pleased I had brought a travel pillow as the airline wasn’t supplying any at the moment, despite having blankets.
That left about 2h sitting up before the second meal and landing. It felt like a waste of the horizontal space that I had but I want to be able to sleep when I get to Kuala Lumpur’s Airside Transit Hotel (now called Sama-Sama Express).
Nightstop airside
Upon landing a little earlier than the scheduled 1730, I killed some time at the satellite terminal before proceeding to the transit hotel. I had a booking of 6h and wanted to use it at a later time when I was more likely to sleep, and then check-out about 0400 to go through international arrival processing before my domestic flight.
Checking-in at 2100 (an hour earlier than my booking of 2200) the kind receptionist kindly extended my stay by an hour then by a further three hours. The hotel was full but my check-out time coincided with an exodus of people. While it was nice that I could leave whenever it suited me in case I felt like I needed the extra sleep. But I was limited by my departure time of 0845 and the need to go through what may be a lengthy international arrival clearance process beforehand.