Getting through KLIA
We woke up at 5:50am, packed our last minute things and hoped in our Grab that we had pre-booked the night before.
Pre-booking a 6 seater Grab was a good idea but we did have some troubles. We had data-only eSims in Malaysia and when you sign up for Grab, they send you a OTP to your phone number via WhatsApp, which is great because that uses data rather than an actual SMS which would require roaming with our Australian phone number (or signing up with a temporary Malaysian number). However, pre-booking required a payment verification with an actual SMS, which didn’t work for us. Thankfully, I was able to turn on roaming on my work sim card briefly, just long enough to get the SMS which saved us from trying to book one on the spot so early in the morning, hopefully work doesn’t mind!
We arrived at the airport 3 hours before our flight and lucky we did because it took that whole time to get through the airport and to our plane!
First, online check-in didn’t work for us, so then we used the machine, which scanned my passport alright but couldn’t scan the others. We lined up to do it at the counter which took forever, only to have them redirect us to another line. In that line, I was able to get the online check-in working, which meant we had to go back to the original line. We ended up in an “assisted” queue, which would hopefully mean a human would give us a hand but after getting to the front of that, they just got us to use the machines without really helping us anyway. After finally dropping our bags off, our next hurdle was our carry on, we had 7kg allowance per bag and one bag was 2kg under and other was 2kg over, but instead of just letting us go through, they made us rebalance the weights by moving stuff between our bags! The kids were pretty restless through all this too, it was pretty stressful.
After so many checkpoints and heaps of walking (KLIA is pretty big) we finally arrived at our gate just as the plane was boarding. We tried to get one more kaya toast from a cafe that sold “Malaysia’s favourites” but they didn’t sell that so we just boarded our flight. Thankfully, due to our “hot seats” with extra leg room, we were able to skip the queue and board pretty quickly.
Flying to Melbourne
The flight was pretty long for the kids. Luca did really well and spent most of it glued to the tablet watching TV shows and playing games, which was great for us. He did throw one pretty big tantrum in the middle though and he was so loud! I ended up taking him kicking and screaming around the corner and a nice stranger came over and offered him a chocolate biscuit, which actually worked. This nice lady was wearing a face mask and I’m not sure if it was the shock of seeing her with her mask or the fact that he was getting chocolate but he did calm down after that.
Bella on the other hand, she slept pretty well here and there but getting on to the flight, between naps and especially as we were landing, she was throwing her head and arms back, arching right over screaming, hitting, scratching and wriggling out of the infant seatbelt. It was a real struggle!
Arriving in Melbourne
Bella was still really agitated when we landed and at the same time, Luca found a disco game on the tablet and was literally laughing, dancing and signing while holding the tablet as he was walking around with his headphones on. He was holding up the traffic as we left the plane but he did make the other people laugh with his dancing. It was such a contrast!
We waited for our baggage but as we had a box of stuff we were bringing back (dried anchovies, prawns, moon cakes, etc.), we didn’t realise that box would go to the “oversized” carousel (even though the box was relatively small), but we managed to get it all in a trolley in the end and continue out.
The dogs sniffed out the food while we were waiting at the carousel and we eventually saw the same biosecurity people in customs. We showed them all the food we were bringing back, which we had itemised and photographed and they were ok with it all, then we called dad to pick us up.
The kids were exhausted but we got home and got them to bed. It’s nice to go on holiday but it was nice to be home!