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Jaydeep · Member Joined: 02 Mar 2015 Posts: 37 Location: Gurgaon

Hello all! And welcome back Wink

I am glad to present another TR on this forum, this time on my trip to Indonesia – spanning 5 airports, 2 airlines, 3 aircraft types. That is from aviation lens.
Apart from that, there are 8 cities, spanning across ~1,400 kms, a few nice train journeys, a volcanic experience and a lot more Very Happy

So here we go!! Part 1 Very Happy

Planning:

The destination:
It was month of June ’15. One fine Sunday morning, I received a call from a college mate – some discussions here and there, and then he asked, ‘what about that foreign trip of ours which we have been trying to plan since 2 years?’ Well he was right… there were just words, nothing else, for good 2 years since we are out of college. Aah! I said, let’s go… let’s look for a couple more friends, and paralelly finalize the destination. And so it was on.
Quickly we on boarded 2 more class mates and started discussing our course of action: we set 3 constraints to ourselves – (1) It has to be a sort of budget trip – within 50-55k per person, (2) It has to be a place where not many Indians go – can be a specific part of a country, (3) There should be something for all 4 of us, as we had somewhat different tastes
Some research, some asking around - 4 locations came up:

Thailand – the northern part: quickly eliminated as 3 of us already had Thailand stamp on the passports
Cambodia – for the diversity it offers
Uzbekistan – for the upcoming destination it is
Indonesia – anything except south Bali, for the diversity is offers

For the 3 options, we started researching more, about places, about travelling, about culture, and yes, about the air tickets.
While there were no direct flights for any of them, there were multiple options available for Cambodia & Indonesia within 35k. But it was not the case for Uzbekistan – Only Air Astana was showing up on the portals, that too with layover of ~10-12 hours… plus the tickets were between 35k & 40k. That eliminated Uzbekistan too. And a vote among ourselves eliminated Cambodia. So Indonesia it was… The land of volcanoes Very Happy

Next step was to finalize high level itinerary – where to enter & where to exit. To explore the most within 9 days we had (from a Friday prior to the Sunday next), we decided to enter through Jakarta (CGK), then travel eastwards to Bali, and then exit from Denpasar (DPS)

The tickets:
Excited, we started looking at options available, there were 3 predominant ones: Thai, Malaysian & Malindo. While Thai offered the fastest way, Malindo offered the cheapest one, with decently timed flights. On the portals, it was Thai ~35k, Malaysian ~38k, & Malindo ~32k.
Quick calls were made to a few of the portals, to avail some discount if possible – and then we hit it! One of them offered us Malindo tickets for 29.5k per head… No second thought, Next half an hour, the PNR was blocked, and another half an hour, payment was made.

It was to depart on 25 Sep 2015 and return on 04 Oct 2015, as below:

OD 206 DEL 22.05 KUL 06.00 (+1) B737 900ER, OD 316 KUL 11.30 CGK 12.30 B737 800 on outbound

OD 305 DPS 13.30 KUL 16.00 B 737 900ER, OD 205 KUL 18.00 DEL 21.30 B737 900 ER on inbound

Fast forward – some preps in between:
As we waited for 3 months to pass, we got ready with detailed itinerary, hotel bookings, 3 train booking, and a domestic flight from Praya, Lombok (LOP) to Denpasar (DPS) on 03 Oct 2015 on Wings Air IW 1963. Other documents needed for the Visa also got ready, and we got a news that Indonesia to fo Visa free soon for Indians… So we did hope that it happens before our departure, but it did not! (Though eff. 01 Oct, this got in place).
Here is how our final itinerary looked:

25 Sep: Dep DEL @22.05 hours on OD 316, 206 combination

26 Sep: Arr CGK @12.30 hours, proceed to Yogyakarta (JOG) by an overnight train with a short tour of Jakarta in day

27 Sep: Arr Yogyakarta @04:15 hours, proceed to hotel. During the day, cover nearby attractions

28 Sep: Take a sunrise tour to Borobudur & Prambanan temples, get back & take evening train to Surabaya (SUB) to take onward train connection to Banyuwangi (BWX) – the port city

29 Sep: Arr BWX @04.15 hours, proceed to hotel. During the day, take trip to nearby beaches & the Savana type Baluran National Park

30 Sep: Take a midnight trip to Kawah Ijen – the dead volcanic crater which required a trek of ~3.5 kms each way. Get back to hotel by 09.00, take some rest and proceed to Gilimanuk – the port city on Bali island – Further proceed to the ‘black beach& Dolphin’ city of Lovina via a bus / car

01 Oct: Take local Lovina trip & proceed to Padangbai, the eastward port on Bali, gateway to Lombok island

02 Oct: Take early morning 5 hour ferry to Lembar, port on Lombok, and proceed to upcoming party destination of Sengiggi to have some fun

03 Oct: Enjoy the beaches, and get back to Denpasar, Bali (DPS) on IW 1963 dep 17.40 arr 18.10 ATR 72-600, Dance for the whole night to end the trip Very Happy

04 Oct: Get back on OD 305, OD 205 combination

The D day:
The day started with a office mail that said something like ‘this task needs to be completed before you leave today’. Wow! What a start Very Happy

During the course of the day, the ‘task’ was taken care of, along with a few others, and I was set out at 17.00 hours, proceeding to my house in Gurgaon to pick up my luggage. Continuing with same cabbie, I reached airport at around 18.30. As I was waiting for other 3 to arrive, I noticed Malindo guys setting up 2 counters in row D, one for business class and other for economy. They do not allow web check in for the departures from Delhi (it is available for Mumbai, Vizag, Kochi if I recall correctly).
By 19.30, all of us were there & we proceeded to the counters. It was indeed time consuming: it took 20 minutes for us to reach the counter with just 2 PNRs ahead of us. And then we realized why it was taking so much time: the guy had all passports, one by one. Then he printed all boarding passes – for both the legs, again one by one, and he asked for the baggage, in the same order as our names were on the ticket, and then he put tags on them, one by one. Meanwhile we asked for 2 windows, which he could not allocate, stating that the flight was full. Anyways, by 20.05 we had boarding passes for both the legs in hand and we proceeded to immigration. 3 of us cleared it fast. One got stuck with a ‘strict’ officer who asked for tickets, hotel bookings, and some more questions for about 6-7 minutes. Finally we were done with it and headed to Dominos to munch something.

Row D, getting ready

All those departures

At around 21.00 hours, we proceeded to the gate 8. A check on FR24 had already told me that it is going to be 9M LNJ. It had already arrived as we reached. 15 minutes of waiting & boarding was announced.

She would be taking us to KUL soon

Inside the plane of a ‘not just low cost’ airline:
It had 3 rows of J, with 30 of Y. The cabin was fresh. I was pleased to find that the legroom was actually good… much better than 6E Very Happy

. And the IFE which looked decent enough to pass a few hours. A quick look at the IFE – some 8 Hollywood movies, 4 Bollywood movies, 2 Bahasa Indonesia, 2 Chinese, with about 8 TV series episodes & a few games. Though the movies were fairly old, it was ok for not so long flight. The crew was a bit dry though… ok for a low cost carrier that is actually ‘not just low cost’ Razz

And yes, there was some Malay English song on the play, that was just damn too irritating.

Legroom

Settling down

And the welcome Smile

I could see China Southern B 528I next to us, readying for Guangzhou IIRC.

At dot 22.00 we were on the pushback. At 22.16 we lined up on runway 28 & were cleared for take off. The next stop – KUL at KLIA2 – the new LCCT Very Happy

In between there was a round of serving, it was paratha, rice, paneer & rajma for veg, and rajma replaced by chicken for non-veg, accompanied with a water bottle& 2 biscuits. Though it looked decent, the paratha was just horrible… chicken was okayish & dal again was horrible. It gave real bad impression on the catering, which indeed got changed on our return flight, where it was much better – they did not serve paratha Razz

Otherwise the flight went just fine, barring that one of the IFEs of us 4 was not working & after repeated request to reset it, it still never worked… ‘not just low cost’, ehh?

Hmm, looks good, but tastes no good Sad

At around 05.25 MYT, announcement was made for landing, and we started a rather shaky decent. It was shaky all the way till touchdown at 05.53… probably the worst landing I ever encountered – but more was yet to come Very Happy

With a long taxi, we arrived at pier P on KLIA 2, and there were just 9 or 10 of us on our flight who were on transit. Following the directions, we reached the international transfers. It was quick – just a security check & we were through. Tired with half sleep, and having ~5 hours to the next flight, we started looking for place to sleep, and bingo – there were a few continuous chairs around the toilet block on pier P side: A sleep for a couple of hours made us fresh, and 3 of us were on the tour of KLIA2. The terminal is weirdly built in my view, and it just is a train station, owned by Air Asia – ‘now everyone can fly’ was just all over the place, more so from the skybridge. It is a nice concept, giving a clear view of gates & tarmac, but with the Air Asia, spotting chances are much more bleak, as all you get to see is a sea of red, and white.

The maintenance of the terminal is not so good either, with many toilets without toilet paper, a few with broken flush. Mosquitoes were all around, and air-conditioning was not working in few patches. But I hear, this one is much better than the earlier LCCT, and that has left me imagining ever since, what the LCCT would be like Sad

Here are few pics for you as I write the next part. And I would request you guys to hold on till it comes… Razz

As this has already got too lengthy, and if you have reached here, then thanks! Hope it wasn’t boring, and I promise to keep the later parts short, with more pics Very Happy

See you soon Wink

The menu, though I did not try any of it!

And the magazine - this was good to pass some time

On landing in KUL

Long walks on the long, sorry big terminal

Over the skybridge

More over the skybridge, red-asia-white-air, the sea, I cant see anything

sumantra · Member Joined: 28 Oct 2007 Posts: 4685 Location: New Delhi

This was exciting, Jaydeep: and a lovely read! I wish I had your will and sheer enthusiasm to do something like this. Or even pen it down!
Nice background on the planning. Planning in such level of detail, and with enough buffers around, is not easy. Not just is your sense of adventure commendable, your geography and sense of history is also fabulous!
Aviation-wise, it was an exciting read for me, and has enough to look forward to. I have heard some not-so-complementary things about Malindo: bad service, lousy food and not enough free water, one scary incident with both engines going quiet about an hour before KUL...and then re-starting (something that was covered up), and now your report. I am glad it was positive, overall. Here's looking forward to more!
Cheers, Sumantra.

Jaydeep · Member Joined: 02 Mar 2015 Posts: 37 Location: Gurgaon

sri_bom · Member Joined: 22 Dec 2006 Posts: 2365 Location: Singapore

Thanks for the detailed report and I was excited to read it was Malindo Airlines.

Malindo is the new age hybrid LCC where food, luggage and free entertainement is thrown in. Also if I am not wrong they were backlisted by European Union some time back.

Seems like you had a good flight and in spite of the few glitches. Although I have to comment that the food seemed like it ws picked up from a local Dhabha.

Looking forward to the rest of the report.

Sri_Bom

Jaydeep · Member Joined: 02 Mar 2015 Posts: 37 Location: Gurgaon

stealthpilot · Member Joined: 19 Dec 2006 Posts: 2325 Location: BLR, DXB

Loved the planning stage it's the hardest but extremely fun part of the trip Smile

Shame about the run down terminal, new one that o.
No extra for food luggage or IFE? Well adding free water can't hurt hehehe.
Great TR
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