When we exited the cavernous house and rearranged our trip, we decided we didn't want to spend the whole month in Melaka and added going north to Penang on our trip.
We left Melaka on the 30th. To my surprise, I found a direct flight from Melaka to Penang that was an incredible bargain. I was a little worried it was a fly-by-night airline. But research showed it to be a part of bigger, well known airline here in Southeast Asia. Since we had to be out of the apartment at certain time and we had our luggage with us, we had no real choice other than to go to the airport and wait. There we discovered just how small Melaka airport is. Not small in size. It is actually a good size, modern facility. But there are only two flights a day in and out! Seems like a lot of overhead to handle such a small amount of traffic.
Having had many a bad experience with discount airlines and luggage, I was afraid we'd be dinged for additional fees or told we had to discard something. Nope. Even though we were slightly overweight, we were checked in no problem. The flight was smooth even though it was a smallish turbo prop plane. Arriving in Penang Airport, however, was bedlam. All kinds of people arriving to be in George Town for the New Year. I went to the taxi kiosk and was told, "No taxis." I am looking at the hoards trying to get a ride into town. "No Taxis? How can that be?" "You want to wait three hours, you can have a taxi." Clearly this guy was not going to be of any help.
What are my options? Have to try to get a Grab. I am looking a the volume of people with their bags all staring at their phones. Wife is saying, "They are all looking for a Grab." Here we go. Christmas night all over. Wife does reconnaissance. She finds a quiet place to sit next to a Dunkin Doughnuts. She grabs us some doughnuts and me some coffee. Just as she arrives, to my shock, I see I have a ride! It will be picking us up in 12 minutes. In the Grab world that could be 12 minutes, 8 minutes, or 40 minutes. Turns out it was 8 minutes! We were hustling our ass with our bags to get to the pick-up point. We just got out of the terminal and to the median as the driver came up. 30 minutes later we were at our apartment.
The place is nice but in a weird location with nothing around it. Fortunately there is small convenience store in the building with a little cafe. We were able to get water, some kind of drinks, and a hot meal. This was good because we were beat.
Transfer completed.
1 comment:
You have mastered the art of the Grab!
Post a Comment