En route

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Early start

While the flight to Tongatapu wasn’t super-early, we still had to wake up before 0500.  I had tried flying out on a day with an afternoon flight but those don’t connect on to Vava’u very well.  Further, going on those days would require a stay in Tonga on a Sunday  –  which is an unproductive […]

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Summing up, financially

I arrived back into Auckland today after 12 weeks away.  The 12 week journey cost me a total of NZD7400 made up as follows: Accommodation and Expenses: NZD5500. Airfares (17 flights): NZD1900. Accommodation costs reflects 13 nights spent in free accommodation (friend’s place and own holiday home). Expenses include four dives, 2 in Seychelles and another […]

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The end is nigh

It was an early (but not obscene) start in Kuching to catch the Malaysia Airlines direct flight from Kuching to Hong Kong (via Kota Kinabalu).  FYI, direct means same plane (in airline lingo); it doesn’t mean non-stop.  It was 1h30 plus 2h55 with a fairly long turnaround at Kota Kinabalu of 1h05 (unlike AirAsia’s 25 […]

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Time with friends

I arrived in Singapore, via Dubai and Colombo, somewhat shattered for a stay with friends. They have a lovely apartment in a flash complex in Bukit Timah.  

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Tonight my plans turn into reality

Dreams to plans to reality The seed of this complex trip was the need to use up my Emirates’ frequent flyer points which were expiring (again). I had enough to take me from East Asia to the weirdest and most wonderful dream destinations in West Asia and Africa, like Sudan, Pakistan or Seychelles. After plenty […]

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Home but not quite

Our AirAsia X flight landed in Christchurch around 1500.  We were home in New Zealand but not quiet home home.  We had another flight departing at 1730 before we would be truly home in Auckland at 1850 .  We had booked ourselves firm tickets for the domestic flight rather than standby.  Of course, the downside […]

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Homeward bound

We left Kuching at 1615 for Kuala Lumpur. Arriving at 1755 we had a very safe “self-connect” waiting time till our ridiculously cheap non-stop flight to Christchurch at 2340.

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With family

We had a nice buffet breakfast at the Novotel where had stayed for the night. But kids were running around noisily around us. It wound Kim up quite badly. On our midday flight from Bandung to Kuala Lumpur, I had ordered possibly the best airline meals I have ever savoured, so Kim could share in […]

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Multi-level marketer on board

Departing Christchurch at 1610, the 11h15 hours on the super-quiet AirAsia X flight went reasonably quickly.  That was even without in-seat personal entertainment. These were all removed when they realised people weren’t paying to use them. I managed to catch-up on some reading and planning for next year’s travel! Just before landing, the crew gave […]

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Early birds and angry birds

This is the cheap trip that we had been looking forward to for about 10 months. When AirAsia X first opened up their sales for the new route to/from Christchuch we snapped up some tickets to KL for NZD58 plus airport taxes, coming to NZD99 … add to that luggage at NZD1 per kg and […]

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