My Trip To KL, Malaysia

I had a great experience when I visited KL, Malaysia last May. I was selected to be one of the participants of the OSHCA Conference-workshop 2007 organized by OSHCA and sponsored by IOSN and InWENT-Germany.

It was my first trip outside of the Philippines. The good thing about it is that I was able to experience the whole trip without spending so much (fully subsidized - accomodation, travel, and food!). Thanks to the support of IOSN ASEAN+3 Node headed by Dr. Eloy and InWENT of Germany.

My travel was one of the longest I have ever experienced. Starting down south in Isabela City I took the fastcraft to Zamboanga early at 6:45am. Then I arrived in Zamboanga City had a quick breakfast then went on to the Airport for check-in. My flight from Zamboanga to Manila was at 10:45am. The flight was delayed so we arrived in Manila almost 1:00pm same day. Then without having lunch I had to take the shuttle bus from the domestic airport to the international airport immediately. There I faced a chaotic bunch of people waiting for their flights. Good for me I was with a friend that time, Al from Cagayan de Oro, he gave me some tips on how to deal with the chaos in the airport and where to go and what to do, otherwise I would be lost in the confusion hehehe...

At around 3pm we decided to finally have some snacks. Paid a hundred for a sandwich and coke in can, imagine that! Anyway, we had to stay there and wait for the check-in counters for our flight to open. at around 4pm they finally did open and we were the first ones to check-in our bags. We had to wait for Doc Francis for a few instructions then at around 7pm we had to get to immigration for final checking.

Our flight was scheduled at around 9pm I think and as expected the flight is delayed so we had to wait a little longer. So we went to the Duty Free area and took our dinner. Again to first time travellers bring lots of money if you ever decide to eat at the airport.

Finally at around 9pm or 10pm we took off for Kuala Lumpur. It was a three-hour flight. We arrived KL at around 1am, we were met by one of the organizers and shuttled to Federal Hotel.

The entire trip took 24 hours, I had to wake up at 4am then slept the next day at 4am. That was tiring but It didn't matter too much.

Travel time:
45 minutes - fast sea craft
1 hour 45 minutes - flight Zambo-Manila
3 hours - flight Manila - KL
1 hour - land trip KLLCCT - Conference venue

And a lot of hours spent waiting...


But overall it was a very very nice trip for me...

Next on my blog, things I learned at the Conference...