TiMeZoNe: Gulf Air

The flight back from Bahrain was uneventful. We spent around 2 hours at Bahrain International Airport. The terminal building is bigger than Doha airport, but less characters. Not many activities on the tarmac. I spotted couple of airliners that do not fly to DOH i.e., Al Jazeera Airways, Cathay Pacific and Malaysia Airlines. Yup.. MH special flight during the summer I guess. It was a huge B777 and it is sooo beautiful - not as beautiful as the Queen of the Sky, B747 :-)

We had lunch at Jasmi's and shopped at the duty free. I bought one Salvy belt that cost me RM380. Pretty cheap. The rest of time, just walk around the terminal back and forth.

The boarding started around 16:20hrs for a 17:00hrs departure. The flight was originally scehduled to depart at Gate 12, but later changed to Gate 11. This time, the bird is A320 in normal GF colour.

The flight was full and we were seated in the middle of the aircraft, seat 17B and 17C. At 17A was a Filipino lady. Once everyone boarded, pushback commence and safety demo took place. Before that, the crew already passed around snacks and OJ for the passengers.

For the whole flight, I dozed off.. probably too tired. In fact, I fell asleep before the take-off only to wake up seconds from landing.

Once landed, we were bussed to the arrival terminal. Although the queue was quite long, it didnt take much time to pass through the immigration. Paid QAR100 and I was given a tourist visa for a month.

The baggage claim area was just like the veggie market I used to frequent. Full of people looking for their bags. In fact, my only checked in bag came out after 20 minutes of waiting. The queue for customs was long as well.

Few passengers got their luggage searched by the officers. Pretty emabrassing if you asked me. The area is right in front of the exit door.

Went outside and called our friend, KM to pick us up. Then, we joined NN, Shah & family for a dinner at Ponderosa...

~ MT @ Qatar
~~ Bin Mahmoud, D0ha

~ To Travel Is To Discover Oneself ~

On 31/8, I did a visa run to Bahrain. My visa expires on 6/9, Thursday, which is working day. Thus, reduce my chance to spend more time in Bahrain.

At first the plan was to meet BH there since he supposed to go on business trip to Manama. However, it was cancelled last minute and Zal decided to join me.

Zal booked Gulf Air for both of us. There are two reasons why Gulf Air, first being the cheapest ticket and second, I have not flown Gulf Air before. I found that Gulf Air uses B767 for this route for its 1000hrs turnaround flight and this added to my excitement . Although I have flown B767 on EY to AUH before, this one is a bit different. This is in original Gulf Air colour and configuration while the EY B767 was a leased.

Since this will be only a weekend retreat, I didn't do any packing earlier. As usual, I got back home late from work that Thrusday night. The nearer you are to your trip, your work load just get bigger and bigger.

Zal, being a true traveller, has prepared the itinerary a night before. Armed with Lonely Planet and internet, he managed to squeeze the whole Bahrain in less than two days. So, any readers out there needs assistnce with trip itienrary, contact Zal. :-))

Our journey to Bahrain started early Friday morning at 8am. NN picked us up from my apartment and drove us to the airport. The security check prior to the check in was a breeze but the check in itself was opposite. It was a long queue and very very slow. Only two counters for Economy class. It took us good 20 minutes to check in and that QAS guy assigned us to a windowless window seat!!! Aaaaarrghhhhh..... I hate that guy!!!!

For information, the check in counter staff can actually do anything they want.. they can assign you the worse seat and they can also assign you the best seat... Better be nice to them. When you feel that the time they take to check you in is too long, they are probably chatting with their counterpart about you or trying to surprise you when you get on board. Just like what happen to me...

Our flight is scheduled to depart 30 mins later than schedule. No harm. This means we can have breakfast and wander around the airport. Last time I used this departure terminal was for my trip to MCT last May. Quite few changes. New Oryx Lounge is now in operational and they have another Costa Coffee on the first floor.

Not many movement on the tarmac this morning. Two new airlines spotted.. Alexandria Airlines (from Alexandria Egypt) and Iran Air Tours (a charter to Shiraz). Others are the Oryx head tail aircrafts.

Around 10:15am, we went to the holding lounge. Before that, we browsed the duty free area and surprised to find out that one Malaysian actually won an Audi A8 last June under the Duty Free Bonanza Lottery. Lucky him!

We were bussed to the aircraft and within minutes, I took my windowless window seat. The flight was 50% full in Economy and majority of them were on transit. Only a handful of us disembarked at BAH.

The crew was not as great as EY or QR. There was no enthusiasm in serving the passengers or guests as EY referred us. Can you imagine one of the crew actually made faces during the safety demo? Not professional at all! If this is Ryan Air or any other western airlines, I do understand it...

The snacks were served before take off, thus giving the crew some relaxation during the flight. After all, we were only 20mins on air. The other 25-30 mintes were on ground. This kind of flight is normally known as charity flight.

It was an uneventful flight and I actually dozed off during that short flight. Landed in BAH on runaway 30R and in no time we were at gate 17.

No issues with immigration and Malaysians were given a two-week tourist visa on arrival for BD5 (~RM50).

We rented a Toyota Corolla 1.8L that cost us BD14 for 26 hours from Thrifty Car Rental. Zal has been designated as a driver and this gave me chance to relax... hehehee.. (actually they do not want accept my Qatar license.. they said it is a temporary license and only valid in Qatar).

First destination... Bahrain National Museum....