The Trip To Europe Begins Tonight

The trip to Europe will begin tonight when we take the Air Asia flight at 8.40 PM from Kota Bharu Airport to LCCT KL. We will put up the night at our son's place in Enstek Labu which is just 20 minutes drive away from KLIA. We will be departing by Gulf Air the next day at 10.30 AM for Bahrain before the onward journey to Frankfurt Germany.
Despite the problem of the influenza A H1N1, we have made up our mind to go on with this trip as any cancellation would be too costly for us having paid the full amount for the trip with Poto Travel Kuala Lumpur. We bought the package during the March 2009 MATTA fair and we like the unhurried pace of the itinerary where we will be putting up in a hotel for two nights before moving on to another hotel in another city. As an elderly person of above 55 yrs, this company gave us a small discount. From what they told us there will be 32 of us in the group. Quite a large group.
For the trip we have made ample preparations in terms of clothing since the weather in Europe seems to hover around a cool 12 degrees Celcius in Amsterdam and 21 degrees Celcius in Paris. Of course it will be very cold in the snowy Titlis Mountain of Switzerland where we will be taking a trip up at an additional cost of 50 Euros each. Hey I need to see whether I can manage to balance myself on a sky since when young I used to roller skates around. I know they are not the same but somehow I feel confident that I can do it at least long enough for my wife to take a video of me. Then I can show the grand children what grandpa is still capable of doing.

These are the bags we will be bringing along. Enough clothing for the 13 days duration from KLIA on 26th May and back on 7th June. Since we will be cooking our own food for the whole trip, we brought along a mini rice cooker and an electric kettle complete with the food rations. Of course we will be sampling some European cusines if we can find the Halal kind.

Two bags each. The yellow travelling bags are courtesy of Poto Travel.

We brought along some kain batik lepas to be given away as present to those people in Europe that may turn out to be friendly to us. One of them is of course a Mr. Nick Habgood whom I did blog about before in my blog The World Is Full Of Surprises. Nick is the partner of Azini Capital of London. Nick has agreed to meet us in London on the evening of the 5th of June 2009. Ain't that nice? Meeting someone whom you have only known by chance on the internet is really something I will not want to miss. Another couple that I would like to meet very much is Abe Awe Goneng and his wife Kak Teh. Can you spare abit of your time for us?

Nick Habgood (right) with his partner Michael.




Many will be curious as to why do I bring kain batik lepas as present. For those who don't know, this piece of cloth with simple patterns has multiple uses among rural Kelantan folks of which I am part of. It is often used as a semutar to wrap around the head just like a turban. As a semutar it can act as a protector of the head of any unexpected knock. It can be removed from the head and used as a baby's support when you have to carry a heavy one like my grand daughter Balkis when she was six months old. Ahh.. the uses are too many to mention here, I will have to blog about it after my return from Europe to tell you all about it's uses.

The kain batik lepas can be used to support a heavy baby on your hip. This was how I carried Balkis around when she was with me for six months since she was six months old.

A makcik using the kain batik lepas as shawl.

Technically this is not exactly our first trip to Europe. We had been there before. This picture of the other half taken in front of Mark and Spencer is proof of it. Anyway this outlet is in a town at the tip of Europe. It is in Istanbul Turkey to be exact. Turkey is making the most of the fact that part of Turkey lies in Europe and is selling it to tourists whenever they visit Istanbul. Yeah we went there while we were in Turkey just to be in Europe. We had to cross the bridge from the Asian side to go over the European side.


Yesterday I was surprised to see this orchid species blooming. I have been keeping it for almost 5 years and this is the first time it blooms. It is the Rhyncostylis sp. It used to found in the wild but now it is not so common. Look how beautiful it is as if it knows that I am leaving and thus blooms in time before I leave for Europe.



To Ee Lynn aka Cover_Operations'78 of the blog Combat Loaded & Mission Ready!, I will be blogging from the hotels on a daily basis should there be internet connections. Thanks for the good wishes.