The travelling starts here...

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From the UK to Kota Kinabalu - the adventure starts here!!

Headed out to Heathrow on Monday evening for a 9:15 flight - all the usual nonsense checking in and a hot, tiring, and largely sleepless 12 hour flight - the in-flight movies were pretty good, though!

Got to Singapore at just after 6pm local time on Tuesday, and just had a couple of hours to kill until the onward flight to Kota Kinabalu. T2 at Singapore is a nice little functional terminal - a couple of good, cheap chinese eateries and a handy supermarket downstairs to stock up on supplies for the onwards no-frills flight.

Nearly missed my connection as the check-in is different from the UK. Helen, if you're reading this make sure you leave plenty of time to get down to the departure gate - it's a long way from the entrance into departures and because they don't put you through all the luggage x-raying and checks until you actually get down to the gate, and wth 3/4 hr until the flight left I was down to the final call... Also another tip - you have to fill in the immigration form (regardless of what BA say), but just put "transit" in the "address in Singapore" box, then you have to come all the way through arrivals and baggage reclaim before going back upstairs to departures and checking in with Air Asia. Thirdly, Air Asia have a 15kg checked baggage restriction, with $9SD charge for every kilo over - so $45SD extra for me - ouch!!

Anyhoo - Air Asia are first-come, first served (like EasyJet), and the planes are great! Clean, lots of leg-room, and leather seats - had a whole emergency exit row to myself, so crashed out for most of the flight...
....until we hit a thunderstorm approaching Kota Kinabalu - I don't think I've ever been so scared in my whole life!!

Got into KK airport, straight through customs and baggage reclaim (these guys are truly efficient!), and my driver was waiting for me - got to the hotel about 1am, and they'd upgraded me to a junior suite, but beleive me, there ain't nothing junior about it - it's bigger than my flat was!! Didn't get much of a view of KK, as it was late, and dark, and I was very, very weary.

Had a long, hot bath (after about 20hrs travelling I didn't smell too hot), and slept like a log!

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