It was somewhere in March of this year when Sissie asked me to attend her marriage to be held in Kuala Lumpur on Sep 11 2010… Yea, its surely was a 911 call for Cheang! Poor fella has no choice in choosing the date!
Knowing my usual practice of throwing excuses for not attending marriages, she purchased an air ticket and sent to me. Well, I still did not commit the trip. As the time was nearing, she started getting furious for my non-committal stand but luckily before situation worsened, I got an approval for the trip. So, all fell in a place and on Sep 4th, I was on a voyage to Malaysia.
She had bought a ticket of a low cost carrier Air Asia (www.aisasia.com). Its indeed a low cost carrier as the return ticket for a DEL-KUL-DEL was less than Rs. 9000. Adding 20 Kgs of check-in luggage both ways, the final price was about Rs. 13K – something otherwise would cost to fly a domestic return flight.
The flight was to take off from the newly opened T3 terminal of Indira Gandhi International Airport of New Delhi. Indeed, the terminal did impress me considering what fiasco has happened for the Commonwealth Games soon to happen there. But as the whole project was handled by private company, one could notice the professionalism deployed in the making of this terminal.
There were shops of some famous international brands once you pass the immigration counters.
A bar and coffee shop too though they were mostly empty.
The lounge was very impressive.
And it got travellators throughout…
While Air Asia is very similar to RyanAir of Europe, it is a bit weird to see that it imposes lots of restrictions on the passengers. One of the restrictions is not to allow any outside food to be consumed on-board. One has to pre-order the meal from its online cafe or buy the food offered during the flight only. Unfortunately, it does not offer any pure veg meal which does not contain onions or garlic and thus I wrote to Customer support of Air Asia to allow me to consume my food on-board. But it refused. I was ok with it. Sissie told me that in her past travels on Air Asia, she had consumed her own food on-board and I should carry my food with me. But being a Malaysia based carrier, I feared that Air Asia staff would be racist for an Indian like me and I may end up being insulted if I dared to have my own food on-board. 
So before boarding the flight, I had my dinner of thepla with Cappuccino!
But when I boarded the flight, I found that people did bring their food on-board and they were happily allowed to consume it… Also, the carry-in luggage restriction is of 7 Kg was also not strictly followed.
When I took my seat, I found that I had no neighbors… I was excited that I could have a good sleep in this flight too. But there were few kids around which kept on crying at irregular intervals pulling out my brain from any sleep state it somehow managed to reach.
Sissie came to pick me up at the airport early morning of Sunday. After few hours of sleep, we then drove to Muar at her parents’ place. Cheang and his parents came there for the official “Tea Ceremony”. Cheang then offered “dowry” to Sissie’s father to “buy” Sissie!
The tea ceremony was followed by a dinner in a Chinese restaurant. The smell of the food was so strong that even a steroid spray for my nasal allergy could not bring it out till next morning.
I have been enjoying “being Jailed” status for last two days. Sissie and Cheang leave for the work early morning. Being home alone, I get a freedom to sleep as long as I can which today was upto 1pm!
In coming days, I will be witnessing few more Chinese traditions, a church wedding rehearsal and an actual wedding on Sep 11.
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