Last Monday, August 2, 2010, I have the opportunity to make a memory and business trip to a place I visited 25 years ago, Penang.
Well for people living in Medan like me, just across the pond Penang is so common, well-known and well visited town for many reasons and one of them is for medical purposes. However for me it is a different story. My first visit to this town was made in the late 60′s when I was a small boy returning home to Indonesia with my parents whom assignment has been completed in the Malaysian state of Sarawak. It was also my first experience in watching the Black and White TV at the E & O Hotel lobby. Georgetown is just a small historical town on the Island of Penang at that time and we are about to make our final hop to Medan our last airport of the trip and since at that time there were only one MSA (Malaysian Singapore Airline) flight from Penang to Medan we have to stay for one day at Penang before going to Medan.
That was 40 years ago, and one can imagine how much change has happened in that time span. However after that I managed to make another nostalgia trip again in the mid 80′s trailing the path our family made in the late 60′s and I really enjoy it.
As time goes by and I’m engaged with work I simply do not have the privilege to make another visit. My last chance was when I made a side business trip to Medan via Singapore and Malaysia, the original plan is to take a train from Singapore to Butterworth and take the ferry service from Penang to Belawan the Medan seaport. However I later found out that the ferry service was not available at my desired departure date so I have to fly from Kuala Lumpur to Medan and skip the Penang visit, but now I finally made it again, thank God.
Now to the topic of this posting.
As mentioned above Penang has been famous from people from North Sumatra especially Medan mainly for medical purposes, and it is naturally that at my trip most of the passengers were on medical purposes. Since the introduction of low-cost airfare the ferry service also have stopped their
Indonesia Air Asia, one of the low fare airlines
service since two months ago (don’t know for how long) and many of those who use this facility were not used to the many regulation of flying. Fortunately every passenger were assign a seat (maybe to avoid people rushing) but there is a facility for one to make a seat reservation at the booking time and pay a certain amount of money for that. However some of the old aged passenger did not realize that or even know about it so when they saw there are vacant seats they just try to occupy the seats, and when the flight attendant mentioned that the seats were reserved they complaint
Vacant reserved seat at the front rows
and argue loudly which attracted the attention of all the passenger. When I saw the face of the flight attendant, I know she was about to burst but praise God she was able to control her temper. to make the story short, the flight attendant leave her for a moment and then returned to her and said something, I noticed that the old lady lowered her voice and after a short period she raise up and go to her assigned seat with all eyes following her.
I was in the position to be able to hear the lowered voice conversation and this is what the flight attendant said to the lady. She said “OK you can remain sitting here, as long as you are willing to pay for an extra Rp. 75,000″ (which is about 20% of the total air-fare she was paying for the flight) when the lady wants to argue more the flight attendant showed her the ticket purchase agreement notes (whom most of us never bother to read) and she was left with no words and have to bear the guilt and shame.
Morale of the incident is humble your self or otherwise you will be humbled, being the boss at your home or office doesn’t mean that you are boss everywhere.
By the way I was assigned a middle seat which I don’t bother since the flight time is just a bit more than half an hour, however the guy on the aisle seat moved to another place shortly after take off so I was able to occupy the aisle seat which I prefer without any words from the flight attendant.
