Trip of a lifetime (London, Paris, Amsterdam) - March 2011

After much deliberation, finally we decided to go for it and book ourselves to Europe. To date the logistics into this trip is the craziest I have ever done. Everyday ada je new information (sumbangan kakakku dan forum rempit semalaya) and changes to our 'itenaries'.

This is not a holiday! It's short of a military operation to bring back Dumbo ok! Unfortunately, though the logistic is of monumental military war fare, the execution is of course not with precision. Mother of all trip of course comes with a mother of all klutz cop moment. Sighhh... I'll get to that if I have the energy.

Our trip begin with a 16 hour flight from KL to London. We took Emirates. So there's a few hours of transit in Dubai. Dapat la strech your legs and take a breather. That's the only positive thing that I can say about the flight. The good thing was when we are on the ground. Hahahah.

Everyone say that their flight is better than MAS. I shall reserve my 4 letter word come back to that. All I can say is that, alhamdulillah selamat pergi and balik.

Our journey begin at 02:10 am on Friday from KL and arrive at Heathrow London on Friday at 11:00 am. We spent the next 5 days in London. Visited most of the must see place and managed to squeeze in a tour of Stamford Bridge (Wheee), Windsor Castle, Oxford and Stonehenge. We stayed in a storage room in Sussex Garden near Paddington. I would recommend the area to anyone... but if you could go to another hotel. Go for it.

On Wednesday, we managed to book the cheapest fare out of London on the Eurostar... heading to Paris. I lobes the train rides. Far more comfortable and a lot more exciting than naik flight. Fare murah, of course la naik 2nd class coach. Bukan la mcm dalam cerita Tourist tu.. yang JD and AJ boleh dating2 berdua je sambil makan-makan. But still 2nd class coach tu pun dah best. Statement mengada la kan. Cuba suruh naik KTM Sinaran Pagi pergi let say Penang ke... sumpah mati hidup balik aku tak nak. (actually tak pernah pun naik keretapi.. hmm)

We booked ourselves into Holiday Villa (as in Holiday Villa Subang tu) Lafayette in Paris. Kepada semua Malaysian, stay here. Seriously only Malaysian can run the hospitality business. Dari kapal terbang, hotel, hinggalah ke rumah urut ah tong. Malaysia Boleh! The hotel may not be a 6 star hotel, tapi the location, the service, the room.. memang puas ati. It's near Gare du Nord (the train station that you arrived from London) as well as Metro Cadet. And ada banyak halal food around and a McD and supermarket around the corner.

We were in Paris for the next 4 days. We went to Amsterdam for 1 day from Paris. Naik train lagi. Thalys pulak. Train ni lagi best dari Eurostar. Amsterdam is a bit chaotic to my taste. Paris is a bit more cheerful kot. My head sometimes still rings with Bonjour Madame... Bonjour Madame.. Bonsoir..Mercii Mercii... Au revoir. Ye statment mengada.

We flew back to KL, on Sunday night the following week. After 9 days in Europe, we have to say au revoir :( Again transit in Dubai.Sempat shopping lagi tu. Flight semuanya penuh aje. Suka betul orang naik airline ni.

Arrived savely in KL, on Monday at 9.00pm! With 4 circus troop equivalent luggage ... and more than 2000 photos in our camera (yang aku pun x larat nak tengok), coats that we have to send for dry cleaning and may not be used again (hopefully not ;P). The next two weeks, jetlag tak hengat. A few times, I sneak a few naps at the office sebab mata dah kalah mat gian, langsung tak boleh nak bukak. One time, I think I fell asleep behind the wheel at 4.30pm. Nasib selamat sampai rumah.

Hopefully, dimurahkan rezeki so that there will be another Europe excursion to come. Amin.

There's a lot of photos that I like from the trip. Almaklum sudah hangkut DSLR pergi sana. This one will always remind me of the nice train ride across Europe. Bebila rajin, I shall write about the places and things that we do while we are there.