Rediscovering The Magic In Routine Travel

When you travel as often as I do, especially to places like Jakarta which is almost just like a two-hour bus ride away, it’s very easy to start taking things for granted. Everything feels so drab and routine — online ticket purchase and check-in; luggage drop-off; chitchat with Malaysian Immigration officers on my long wait for permanent residence; the short train ride from the main terminal to the departure gate; last-minute phone calls and text messages before boarding the plane; takeoff; in-flight meal; duty-free sales (although I tend not to buy anything despite my habit of browsing the catalogue from cover to cover); landing; getting past Immigration; claiming luggage; holding my breath as I walk past Customs officers (they make me nervous somehow, even though I don’t carry any contraband with me!); exchanging money into the local currency; the drive to wherever I’m staying for that particular trip.

My last trip to Jakarta caught me by surprise though. It was the usual business trip with countless meetings and the occasional bouts with the infamous Jakarta traffic. But it was filled with small unexpected surprises.

First off, there was our flight to Jakarta on Malaysia Airlines (MAS), with a flight crew who were the perfect embodiment of the mesra (warm) service that won MAS accolades and awards many years in a row. I could actually feel the warmth and genuineness of their smiles. There was never the slightest hint of annoyance or boredom from them, despite passengers’ countless requests for drinks and mundane questions about the most trivial matters. They even ‘forced’ upon us a couple of satay in-flight meals ‘to go’…plus several bags of peanuts.

There was the lunch in a desa (country)-style Sundanese restaurant where I bonded with two Indonesian ladies with whom conversation used to be limited to purely business only. We ended up talking about everything else under the sun, stretching what was initially a ‘short’ lunch discussion to a 3-hour friendly chat over gurame goreng, grilled prawns, red rice, the most delicious tempeh that my taste buds have ever encountered, grilled fish, sayur goreng, four types of sambal that ranged from ‘pedas dan manis’ (spicy and sweet) to ‘pedas sekali’ (VERY hot), too reluctant to say our goodbyes.

Then there was the unexpected trip to the Malaysian Embassy in Jakarta. After getting past Indonesian frontline staff who didn’t quite understand what we needed, the consular officer in charge ushered us into his office, listened to our predicament, immediately got his staff to prepare the document that we needed, all the while chatting with us as though we’re old friends who haven’t seen each other in a long time. And yeah, he mistook me for a Malaysian. Why am I not in the least bit surprised? ;)

Our return flight to KL on AirAsia was the icing on the cake. During in-flight sales, the staff kindly obliged in showing us the contents of the item that we had our eyes on. They didn’t seem to mind a bit when we decided not to buy the item in the end. So to reciprocate their patience, I bid them thanks as I was about to step off the plane upon our arrival in KL. Then I don’t know what came over me. Suddenly I just found myself blurting out  “Boleh tengok tak?” (‘May I take a look?’) as I gestured towards the still-closed cockpit door.

“Boleh (‘Yes, you can’),” the steward said. “Nak ambik gambar pun boleh (You can even take pics)!”

And that’s how I ended up sitting on the pilot’s chair in the claustrophobic-inducing cockpit, grinning from ear to ear as my colleague took my pic.

I’m grateful. I’m in awe. I’ve rediscovered the magic in routine travel. It’s not the magic that most people get from discovering places previously never seen before. Rather, it was the kind of magic that comes from the most unexpected encounters with the most extraordinary ‘ordinary’ people, the inexplicable connections with perfect strangers, the littlest gestures that leave the deepest impressions on our souls — the best travel magic of them all.