I returned to the same place I was same time last year. Although I knew this week long trip will be pretty hectic in schedule, but never crossed my mind that this was my worst experience ever!
It was a rough start. When the flight from home were cancelled and moved to the next available flight, this had caused the connecting flight to London to depart, sadly without me. The first point of disappointment when I was told that upon arrival to Kuala Lumpur, a staff will be available immediately to assist. Sadly, no one was there waiting. Worst when it took the airline staff 2 hours to get things sorted out and finally arranged my transfer for night lodging and booked me to the next morning flight. The nearest hotel they got me on was an hour away from KLIA as all nearby hotels were fully booked, no thanks to F1 race. I only managed to get some 3-hours sleep but still pleased to board the plane and practically slept the whole journey through. I was glad to arrived London although much later that I should be if the first flight would have waited for me.
Journey home was worst. I missed the flight home! I was at Cardiff for the weekend. The first train I boarded from Cardiff was cancelled after an hour due to a technical issue. When the next train arrived, we were told to get on that train but to our unfortunate, even this train was stuck for an hour due to the signaling damage caused by vandalism. Just when I wanted to get off for a taxi, the train attendant announced that the train will depart within the next 10 minutes. True enough, the train moved but not for long though. It just stopped middle of nowhere waiting for the signaling to continue. An hour in the middle of nowhere with no other way for any passenger to get in or even out, gosh we are practically all trapped! Resulted of that, my original 4.15pm train finally reached Paddington station 30 minutes before my flight, which obvious enough I will never make it for the flight. Still I took my chances and hop on Heathrow Express which cost me GBP 18, but that does not help much anymore. I was way too late for the flight. A normal 2.5 hours journey from Cardiff to Paddington now took me 5 hours had cost me a bomb - miss of flight, a night spent in the Airport, a new ticket back home (which thankfully the airline allowed for a ticket re-issue and only charged me for GBP45 as penalty, pheewwww!) and late for work! Boy, what an awful experience (lesson).
Albeit the rough journeys, everything else was lovely. The weather was perfect, greens are sprouting, flowers of all sorts were in full blooms and the people here are friendly as always.
