*
Times mentioned in this post are not accurate due to time constrains in completing this post, which caused a delay in publishing. This post was published three weeks after I started writing. Not that the dates matter, though.
—————————-
In three weeks, I’ve travelled to all four corners of the Peninsular Malaysia. Throughout my stay in Kuala Lumpur, which is on the west coast of the peninsular, I have travelled to Johor Bahru (Southern tip), Kuantan (East coast) and recently Langkawi, which is in the Northern part of the peninsula. So that’s North, South, East and West, all of which were reached by car.
That said, last weekend, my relatives and I went on a four-day vacation to the lovely island of Langkawi, a 1 hour and 40 minutes ferry ride off the coast of Kuala Kedah, Northern Peninsular Malaysia. Our Friday evening ferry ride were wildly rocky despite the boat’s large size due to “rough waves” as told by the ferry operator. Nothing was more welcoming as the Jetty Point harbour as we held our nausea, desperate for firm grounds. Upon reaching the shore, we rented a 12-seater old ass van, which stalled 3 times that night on its way to the hotel alone. There were 13 of us, you know, uncles, aunties, cousins, grandmommas..
Noon next day, we headed for the Langkawi International Maritime and Aerospace (LIMA ’05) Exhibition which were held there from 6 to 11 December. Count us lucky for planning a trip to Langkawi without even knowing about LIMA, the only time where prices everywhere spikes, taxi fares, car rentals, hotel fares, boat rides — you name it. Police escorted motorcades sped by literally every hour around town, I had to say though, that the island wasn’t prepared for the LIMA event: construction at the new Jetty Point ferry terminal wasn’t completed to say the least, the upgrading works on the road leading to the exhibition centre was not even half done, too. Shame on them, really, to host an international event and not getting ready for it.
Nonetheless, we made it to the LIMA exhibition centre in the egg-frying heat of that Saturday afternoon. The exhibition centre was filled with exhibitors from the aviation industry from all over the world, namely: RMAF, RMA, Antonov, Northrop Grumman, BAE Systems, Airbus (nice A380 model), Boeing, Rolls Royce, blah blah blah. Amongst the poster grabbing rush we managed to ‘grab’ a poster of the sweet-ass Airbus A380 in MAS colours and a Sukhoi SU-30MK fighter jet poster. The former which was ripped off an exhibitors table (with permission, of course) and the latter which was given by a Malay family who grabbed two of the same posters in the rush. Lucky, eh?
We completed the whole exhibition centre just in time for the airshow which was at 2pm. 5 minutes before that and we’ve already heard the RMAF MiG-29 taking off. We rushed out and chased with the crowd to the tarmac. Despite the mercy-less heat, everyone braved the sun and stepped out for the airshow. Parked on the tarmac were a few aircrafts which I could not name. Well, I guess it’s better to leave the rest to pictures instead of endless paragraphs, so here ya go:-
Fire Department’s chopper in a rescue demonstration.
Row of RMAF MiG-29s firing up, getting ready for the airshow.
and off they go.
Roaring past the crowd in formation. This shot isn’t possible without the sports mode on my Nikon Coolpix 3700.
MiG-29s taxiing back after retiring from the sky.
An overall shot of the tarmac.
Teh army babe dude posing with the beast .