June 22-24. LGW-IST-KUL-ADL

Traveling again. But our flight wasn't until nearly 6pm, do hurry up and wait. We mostly sat around all morning. Well, I did, while Lynn finished packing. Then early afternoon we were driven to Gatwick, went through the various queues, then sat around for a few hours. Then more queues into the gate and onto the plane. 

Fortunately the first flight was relatively brief,around three and a half hours. Though when we landed we were taxiing for at least 20 minutes. Istanbul is a seriously big airport, but apparently not big enough: the plane stopped in the middle of nowhere and we were bussed to a terminal.

More plane seatbelts now have a sash strap that you pull down and clip on for takeoff and landing. I'm torn - I appreciate it cars they make seatbelts much safer, but in planes they're very annoying and I don't remember to ever put them on until told. I assume smart people have decided they make a difference, though it's hard to imagine in (and I prefer not to imagine it while sitting on a plane).

The leg from Istanbul to KL was the longest of the trip, around 10 hours. But we slept for maybe half of it (it's hard to keep track of the time) and it was pretty comfortable. As Dad predicted, it wove a path below Ukraine and above Iraq.

You might need to compare that with a map to make sense of it, the borders in that region are pretty complicated.

So I'll finish here, sitting in KL airport waiting for our final flight home.

April 27. Herne Bay, Flight Aftermath

 After my last post yesterday we flew the ten-and-a-but hours to Istanbul. On an A350 and a bit newer than the first leg to Malaysia. And because Lynn and I were across the aisle from each other we didn't have to climb over each other to get out of our seats. It left KL a bit after midnight and fortunately we got a reasonable sleep after a quick meal. It flew west over India, Pakistan, Iran and Turkeye.

Istanbul turned out to be a very large, very busy airport. The formalities were straightforward - getting through the 'transfers' area to the main terminal. We walked for 20 minutes to a help desk to be told they couldn't help swap our seats around for the next flight. Then  20 minutes back to find a lounge, where we hoped to have a shower as we were feeling pretty run down by this point. Turned out that there was an hour wait for the showers, so we gave up and walked 20 minutes back to the gate and by this point it was boarding. Fortunately the last leg was only about four hours and after a breakfast we were able to sleep an hour or so and woke when we were ready to land.

Disembarking and getting through the formalities was quick and easy - it's all automated now and we didn'tspeak to anyone. Unfortunately, when waiting for our bags Lynn checked the location of the airtags we use and found that one bag was still in Istanbul. So we waited to get our remaining bags (which took a while) and then talked to the helpdesk who seemed unsurprised, quickly located the bag and said it was on the next plane and would be delivered to us sometime in the coming days.

We were collected by Lynn's patient cousin, Tom, and driven two hours to Herne Bay in Kent. We arrived at about 1pm and 35 hours after leaving our home. The afternoon has been spent sitting in their conservatory on a fine and mild day - hopefully weather than will continue. Too befuddled to do much more and expecting the jet lag to overwhelm us at any time.

April 26. ADL-KUL-IST-LHR

 Currently sitting in sa lounge in KLIA, so the day is far from over. But we have a long break here and I suppose will get progressively more tired and less motivated. Our route today means three legs, which is the cheapest way right now, but feels a lot longer than the two legs on most previous routes.

We started with a 9.50 flight from Adelaide - and were obviously at the airport a couple of hours early, which was a bit boring but the alternative was to sit at home waiting so it was probably the lesser of the evils. It's seven hours to KL which is not too bad, but long enough to get bored. No turbulence, but there never is these days so all flights are kind of good. (That's my experience, I think statistically that climate change is making turbulence a bit worse but this is balanced out by the more sophisticated flight routing.) The route curves up over WA and leaves the coast just east of Port Hedland.

The business class seats were okay. A bit narrow, and there were touch buttons in two places to recline the seats, both of which I continually brushed with my elbow so the seat would jerk and twice I triggered the massage function, which I discovered when the seat started to inflate beneath me. After a while they served lunch and then turned the lights off and almost everyone had a nap. This suited us as we'd been up early. It also meant that it feels like we've been travelling a day or so already.

In KLIA we had a wander then took the bus to the main terminal (this took a long time as it's usually a train and I panicked and thought we were going the long way, thus delaying everything). At the main terminal we found that the lounge we were going to no longer services Turkish Airlines, our next carrier, so we had to come back to the satellite terminal. And here we are, eating and drinking and killing time for another 5-6 hours until the next leg.

Plaza Premium Lounge, KL