Mar 23, 2006

Managed to touchdown to KLIA just before 9am yesterday.. Alhamdullilah..!!
I'll start with the ending, just to get it out of my system..

I was supposed to be back on the 18th, reaching KLIA on the 19th.. just nice la.. took Monday off, to rest plus settle my car service etc.. aleh2.. on 18th morning, right when we were abt to leave for tawaf wida' (the goodbye tawaf/walking around the kaabah), our group leader called us in for a meeting. Apparently our seats have been cancelled...... huh? what? aaa..!! everyone was like stunned.. he explained that apparently the airline overbook their flight by abt 40 seats, and seeing that there's on 14 of us (under group booking), they've decide to cancel our ticket for 18th & provided seats for the locals instead.. for what, u might ask? coz these ppl want to come over to KL to watch the F1.. how is that possible, you want to know? when dealing with such people, sorry to say that such things are not rare occurance.. adeh.. how la?? our bag are already waiting in front of the hotel awaiting for us to complete our wida' & for the bus to pick us up la wey..
after lots more phone calls that morning, KL office says that the matter has been settled & that we should head to the airport.. we didnt quite buy it, but lets try anyway.. off we went for the tawaf wida', with chaos minds.. the group leader, who's also the owner of the tourgroup that we went with, his youngest daughter was admitted to hospital earlier that morning...his brother, who's with us needed to be admitted to the hospital due to his advance stage of diabetes (but came with us anyway as a last resort)... the estate manager has to pay his people's salary on monday... the doctor had a surgery scheduled on thursday.. me, you know la, the only reason my phone has not been ringing off the hook is coz i told them i wont have coverage over there (well, plus i can't charge my battery either).. - see how badly all of us had to go home??!!

Anyway, the flight was at 5, & we were still fighting with the airlines guys by 4.. so definitely no chance of that then.. by then, we were told to decide whether to return to Makkah or stay in Jeddah for the confirmation.. we're trying to get the next flight out which was the next evening, but also turned out to be fully booked.. in fact tried to get 4 seats, for the brother+wife & estatemanage+wife.. but was told to wait for the decision.. since we're already staying that the Jeddah hotel under the airline's expenses, even before knowing the turnout for the next day's flight.. and finally told that no one will fly earlier than the 21st, we finally decided to accept our fate.. there's no other flight in between that and luckily, if you can call that, the airline decided to confirm our ticket together with the second group (another 14's initery included staying in Makkah till the 21st). Otherwise, i'd shudder to think about it..

as my mum put it.. maybe god has decided that our group, mostly being professionals and all, had deserved this extra rest, all paid for, after we've completed our umrah & before we start back our hectic lifestyle.. in that case, what can we say, but alhamdullillah...

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