Visiting Malaysia

We decided a few months ago that we wanted to visit Malaysia, my home country, at the end of this year. Fortunately, we’re just the two of us and pretty flexible when it comes to timing our holidays. We started looking for off-peak season tickets pretty early and stumbled upon a very good offer on eBay. Yes, you heard me right – eBay.

The tickets were fixed-price items on eBay and not on auction. I was pretty surprised to find such an offer on eBay especially when the prices of flight tickets are typically variable depending on availability and departure dates / days. In the description, the travel agency that posted the item advised interested bidders to get in touch with them prior to making the purchase on eBay. We did so.

We got in touch with them, expressed our preferred dates of travel and got an offer. The price was slightly higher than that which was advertised on eBay but still the best we found on the Internet. A return ticket from Germany to Malaysia for one adult was 550 EUR with Etihad, the national airlines of the UAE. We accepted the offer and transferred the money soon after.

About four months went by before we boarded the plane bound for Malaysia. Our flight was pleasantly uneventful. We boarded the plane in Munich, transited in Abu Dhabi and arrived in Kuala Lumpur. The transit in Adu Dhabi was pretty long though – seven hours. Nonetheless, we found a nice lounge, had some food and drinks, surfed the Internet a bit and soon enough had to make our way to the departure gate. As usual, I used the time on the plane to catch up on some movies. I watched Transformers 2 in the first leg and Wolverine in the second – both movies I wouldn’t have been "able" to watch with my lovely wife at home.

Etihad is a pretty good airline and I would gladly recommend it. We were happy with their service, punctuality, movie selection and the huge LCD screens they had in Economy. They are also the only airline I know to offer a very decent pair of headphones. Most other airlines provide passengers (in Economy) with sorry excuses for headphones - they tend to hurt your ears more than entertain you. I found the leg room to be a little tight though when compared to Lufthansa, for example.

We arrived in Kuala Lumpur at about 2 pm and were picked up by my brother. We then made our way to my aunt's place.

joel@jjsolomon.com