a room without a view

Its 10pm and I am waiting at the KLIA departure hall typing the entry on my PDA (yea!! no wifi though). I am wearing the security wrist tag which in any circumstances should stay on my left wrist. I left my identity card with the security of the daily pass counter in exchange for the wrist tag and a visitor pass. Felt like a newborn in hospital where nurses put wrist tags on both babies and moms for identification purposes. Well maybe not exactly feeling like newborn.. just a jakun in KLIA hehehe.

I remember my first assignment at KLIA. Witnessing the first group of Banglas deported back to their country via the international airport. At that time I was only given the visitor pass to walk freely at the immigration counters and take the train to the departure hall. Of course I was not allowed to board the plane and fly to Bangladesh for free though I always carry my international passport with me hmmm...

While I was contemplating on how to get a free ride to anywhere (since I already at the departure hall), the Banglas were asked to walk and squat in a row - like when we are in assembly during school days. These Banglas, they were cool guys. It was cool in the departure hall and yet they refused to wear their slipar jepun. That cheap rubber sandals were either kept in their luggage bag or tied with a piece of string and slung on their shoulders. Yet, they are going to board the Boeing 737 direct flight to Karachi. Cool guys!

My first experience in a plane was back in 1995 when I met a couple who had to fly to Taiwan in full wedding attire. That was the first time I got security pass, got my bags scanned and entered a plane. Though a few months before I did fly from Senai Airport to Subang Airport, but that was in Fokker 50. My first solo flight unaccompanied hehehehe another Jakun. So excited but had to act cool.. That time the flight only cost me RM95.

Now it is 11.30pm and updating my entry, this time in a Air side hotel in the main terminal near all the international gates.

My assignment today was to witness the first passengers of the innaugural flight from Chennai, India. The flight 9W0342 Boeng 737 touched down at 5.25am after making a few circles to delay the time while waiting for the ministry VIPs to arrive.

So we had a few hours rest before the wake up call at 4am. We were brought to Airside Hotel and I got Room 169 all to myself. For the first time I got a room without a wardrobe. Since I did not get any chance to clean up before going to the hotel, I decided to hit the shower. Alamak! Howlah? My wrist tag will get wet. Time to get creative!

Done what I need to do, I decided to look at the view from my room. Go straight to the curtain, looking for the opening and found none. Lifted the hem of the curtain and tried to poke my head, hit a wall. Ohhh.... the curtain was only a camouflage. There was no window!