30012011 Raining from KUL to BWN and AKL

My parents had a good old friend staying in Auckland, New Zealand for a few years now. So when he invited them to go over and promised that he would bring us around, my parents couldn’t resist. Trust my mother to research the ticket prices for the cheapest option available which would bring us to New Zealand without burning a hole in our pockets. Eventually she went for Brunei Airways. With our tickets ready, we set out on a rainy day for the airport.

Unfortunately, the ticket agent forgot to reserve a hotel for us as we were transiting in Brunei for a night. It took us some time before the counter staffs managed to contact the reservation agent, and pushed her to get us a place to stay. When it was finally sorted out, it was almost time for us to be at the boarding gate to catch the flight to Brunei.

It was still raining when we took off and left Kuala Lumpur. This was my first time visiting Brunei too, despite it being one of our neighbouring country. The flight took about 3 hours before we arrived at our transiting country.

The second problem of the day was when we found out that there wasn’t anyone around to bring us to our hotel. Had to go back to the Brunei Airways counter to ask them, and it was a much of a hassle to actually get them to do something. After waiting and waiting and seeing them make endless calls in a slow-motion, finally they managed to get a van to pick us up and bring us to the hotel.

We were given two rooms to share between three of us. It was a little scary to be sleeping in a room meant for two, so I had the television switched on the whole night. Talk about being easily scared. Luckily it was only a night’s stay, and after having our breakfast the next morning, we were sent to the airport for our second flight to Auckland.

It was also a rainy day in Brunei. The rain got heavier and heavier as we boarded and waited in the plane. They were also doing some last minute maintenance, which must have been difficult in the heavy rain. But after a long wait, we were ready to take off on the 9 hour long journey to Auckland.

The only problem I had was that we departed Brunei at about 11am in the morning, so it was near impossible to fall asleep. It was also pretty amazing that we were kind of flying into the future, because New Zealand was 4 hours ahead of us.

After a long 9 hours, we landed at Auckland International Airport at around 1am in the morning. The immigration was crowded, and there were a handful of Hong Kong nationals who were having trouble at the checkpoints, because they couldn’t understand what the officers were asking, which also explained the long wait. The customs checks were also very strict, so it took a long time before we were out, greeted by my parents’ friend.

Apparently the rain must have followed us all the way to Auckland, as it was still drizzling. Took us much effort to get our luggages into the car before we headed off for the hotel in the middle of the night.