It was quite tiring with 11 days on the road covering 3750 km, spending 320 GBP on diesel, 500 GBP on car rental and 500 GBP on accommodations.
Next was packing to go home. We stuffed the fragile ceramic plates loosely in between clothes in 3 suit cases. The rest 4 bags were stuffed with souvenoirs, chocolates, shoes and clothing.
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| All in 7 bags |
I had purchased a portable weighing scale earlier to ensure that all of the items are packed within the allowed weight of 120 kilos. I had purchased the max weight allowed per person of 30 kilos. We had bitter experience during one of our travel overseas where our luggage were in excess by 5 kilos and had to pay several hundred dollars to bring them home.
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| Analog scale on left and digital scale on right |
To ensure the maximum weight are not exceeded, we had all them weighed. Had bought 2 weighing scale. The analog one was purchased at Dadibhais retail shop in Joseph Street Bradford costing 2 pound but does not operate very well. The digital one was purchased at Boundary Mills Store, Newcastle for 10 pound. It was originally priced at 29 pound, reduced to 19 pound and finally 10 pound. The digital scale is a Salter-branded and operate better.
The packing was done at our last stop lodging place at Buckingham Travelodge. The total weight was 10 kilos less, so on the way to the airport, we stopped over at Buckingham Tesco just across the road to our hotel to buy more chocolates and added 5 more kilos to the weight.
The luggage does not include 4 boxes of ceramic wares that the wife had purchased at Portmeirion Factory outlet in Stoke & Longton, Stoke on Trent. We had left them with Ustaz Shamsul who is kind enough to ship them together with their personal effect since the family will be going back to Malaysia sometime in June.
The distance from Buckingham to Stansted airport is 200 km away which is an estimate 2 hours drive. We left the hotel at 11am and stop over at Ustaz Shamsul house in Oxford to give him our stock of food that we had accumulated during the trip such as a bottle of cooking oil, kicap habhal, lingham sauce, pack of rice and onions.
The packing was done at our last stop lodging place at Buckingham Travelodge. The total weight was 10 kilos less, so on the way to the airport, we stopped over at Buckingham Tesco just across the road to our hotel to buy more chocolates and added 5 more kilos to the weight.
The luggage does not include 4 boxes of ceramic wares that the wife had purchased at Portmeirion Factory outlet in Stoke & Longton, Stoke on Trent. We had left them with Ustaz Shamsul who is kind enough to ship them together with their personal effect since the family will be going back to Malaysia sometime in June.
The distance from Buckingham to Stansted airport is 200 km away which is an estimate 2 hours drive. We left the hotel at 11am and stop over at Ustaz Shamsul house in Oxford to give him our stock of food that we had accumulated during the trip such as a bottle of cooking oil, kicap habhal, lingham sauce, pack of rice and onions.
We reached the airport at 2pm. The queue was long but they had 5 counter opened and so it was a smooth check-in. Our luggage was exactly 5 kilos less as was expected. The flight was scheduled at 5.30pm
Me and wife were sit together. However, our kids were separated to the other side of the row. The plane is only half full. This is a way Air Asia makes money from its passenger to ensure they booked their seat online for RM 35 per seat reservation.
However as the plane took off, and since the plane was half full, each one of us took 3 seats to ourselves. So do the other passengers. We are thus able to lay down sleeping throughout the flight.
They served briyani & nasi lemak during the flight. Two years ago when we travelled the same route, the same dish were served. Seems that Air Asia is not very imaginative/creative in providing food selection to their customers.
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| Nasi limak or nasi lemak? |
I had reserved for a nasi lemak but they served nasi limak instead. Thanks to Air Asia for helping to promote Bahasa Malaysia.
To pass the time, Humairah did some sketches. However most of the time we doze off.
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| Sketch by Humaira |
The plane landed at KLIA airport at 1.30pm as scheduled. We quickly checked thro' the immigration and custom. Hanif our 3rd son had waited at the airport. We managed to squeeze all the 7 bag in our Honda City boot. The Vauxhall we rented in UK could not hold all the 7 bags in the boot.
Alhamdulillah we safely reached home at 3.30pm and were greeted by our 2 cats Oren and Tamteh both sleeping, kuat tido macam aku jugak.
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| Tamteh in deep thought |
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| Oren (RIP on 06 Oct 2011) eyes half open |