SYD to SIN to KL to KK

Sydney to Singapore to Kuala Lumpur

The day  flying: Qantas Club breakfast, and a QF flight for a change with inflight entertainment. It was going to be fun! It was, until the first movie (Goddess) finished and Mum gave me a pad with questions on it! Geography and maths lessons followed me, but Mum did say “you’re missing two days of school, so you should do SOME work”! 

Here are the questions, and my answers (I had to read the Qantas magazine, look out the window, and watch the flight path video)

1. What time did we depart Sydney? 9.45am
2. How long is the flight to Singapore? 7:35 hours
3. Singapore is 2 hours behind Sydney, so what will be the local time when we land into Singapore? 17:20 (5.20pm)
4. We are departing Singapore at 19:10 for Kuala Lumpur. The flight is about 55 minutes. What will the time be in Sydney when we land at KL? 22:05 (10.05pm).
5. What does “ETA” mean? Estimated Time of Arrival.
6. How long will it take us to fly from Sydney to KL? 12 hours & 20 minutes.
7. What direction are we flying from Sydney to Kuala Lumpur? NW
8. How many degrees is Kuala Lumpur from Sydney? about 270 degrees
9. We are on an A330-300 plane. How many of these planes are in the Qantas fleet?
10. What is the cruising speed of the A330-300? 890 km/hour
11. How far is it from Sydney to Singapore? 6,289 km
12. How long should it take to get from Sydney to Singapore? (working it out from questions 10 and 11 - you can use a calculator. Time = distance/speed, so Time = 6,289/890, so time is 7:06 hours.
13. Why does the flight path say it will take 7:35 hours? Because the plane doesn’t go at the cruising speed when it’s going up or descending. 

So, I did geography skills which Mum says I will have to do in Year 7, and Maths, which I have done. 

OH, and I also had to do more WEATHER observations, which I had do for homework a few weeks ago. 

The clouds became more interesting when we were over Java, and Borneo and the South Sea (which is what Vietnam calls the South China Sea). Mainly because we were flying through the afternoon clouds which had evaporated from the equator heat. We flew through puffy cumulous clouds, we saw the high streaky cirrus clouds, and the stratus clouds were always around. BUT I loved dodging the cumulonimbus clouds, or actually I don’t think we did and it was fun watching Mum “not enjoying” the turbulence!

Descending into Singapore haze

I certainly now, understand the smoke haze Singapore was complaining about, and, how Indonesia is accusing them of acting like a child, although some Malaysians aren’t too happy either. Our decent into Singapore was really strange as we couldn’t see anything accept a thick layer of smoke blanketing Singapore. Mum and I were lucky enough to see one boat below! I was starting to wonder how the pilot was going to land the plane, but then again I know he would be listening to Air Traffic Control and a radar and a navigation system.

It was unusual not heading to the Tanglin Club after our flight which is our usual routine! In fact it would have been better, can anyone guess why? Correct, more MATHS! You see Mum had ANOTHER LESSON for me -currency exchange! She had to change 200 USD into Ringet and lucky me got to convert it. I learned that 1USD = 3 Ringet, so 200 USD = 600 Ringet! Mind you, it was easier than converting Kip because 7000 kip = 1 USD.

B & B - in KL - breakfast

It was dark when we descended into KL’s international airport so we couldn’t see much, however it didn’t matter  the airport is far from the city and you could barely see any lights and I discovered this morning that there are NO lights because oil palm plantations surround the airport. Mum and I were both tired, and the Bed & Breakfast house was further from the airport than expected . . . like 25 minutes, not 5, but I still had time to get my Nasi Lamak (dinner) which I ate in the taxi. 

 The alarm went off at 6.30am this morning and after I had some honey stars (I haven’t had them since Saigon) we went to the bus station to get a coach to the airport for our flight to KK. When we took off from KL I saw SOOOO many oil palm plantations, and these were near KL, no where near Sumatra where the fires are burning to make way for oil palms. 

Oil palm plantations

I can certainly see the difference being in a Muslim country. Mum taught be the difference between the Burqa (when women have their eyes covered by a mesh), the Niqab (when only their eyes are showing) and the Hijab when their face is showing, and sometimes women just wear a head scarf. There were so many many black cloaked women in the airports. I don’t know what age a girl is when she has to wear it, because I saw lots of girls my age who were dressed just like me - except I didn’t see anyone wearing hiking boots. (does anyone know?). 

We’re staying in a hotel about 45 mins from KK city, which is great because all we can see from the ground floor hotel room terrace is grass, tamarind trees, the South Sea and a warning saying “Beware jellyfish” !! We didn’t go swimming in the sea today!

The view from our terrace room

Ready for a swim