I travelled from London to Kuala Lumpur on 30th November 2020, and unfortunately I couldn't find much relevant information online before my trip and ended up poking my friend (who just went back to Malaysia two months earlier than me) every two days to clarify all my little questions. It’s lucky enough that he still hasn't blocked my whatsapp after all these annoying kacau moments. So, as I am currently under my 14 days quarantine now, I thought “ hmm why don’t I write about my experience and who knows it might be helpful for others?” and yeah if you are reading this, it means that I haven’t wasted all my quarantine time on Korean drama.
So before starting this article, I’d just like to emphasize that this is just based on my experience and opinions, things might be varied at different times.
Step 1: Get your flight ticket
I travelled from London on 30th November 2020 with Qatar airline. It was my first time using the airline, the air ticket was about £470 , including the travel insurance. The flight was from London Heathrow- Doha, Doha- Kuala Lumpur, 16.40 hours in total.
Details as below:
Both of the flights were really good, staff were extremely helpful and friendly, food was nice, Wifi on board and most importantly, social distancing and face masks rules were implemented throughout the flight. My assigned seat in my second flight (Doha- Kuala Lumpur) was surrounded by people and I immediately requested to change my seat. The cabin crew was very understanding and she asked me to choose any seat I preferred (of course not the one in Business class area~) In the end I found a quiet seat at the end of my section. Nice and quiet^^
Both the flights were pretty quiet and certainly not full. I had the whole row for myself for both flights, only had one or two people around me during the first flight..
P/S: Qatar airline did not require a test result upon departure, all Malaysians have to take Covid test in KLIA once landed. (For procedure in KLIA, please read Step 4)
Step 2: Complete your Letter of Undertaking and email to London Embassy
Letter of Undertaking can be downloaded via this link:
Complete the form and email to loulondon@kln.gov.my
You should receive the Letter of Permission in the next three days. I did my application 10 days before my flight.
Step 3: Download Mysejahtera App and register your account
You would need it to scan all the barcodes once you have landed in KLIA. I would recommend checking out the app before arrival as it would take some time to fill in your details. Some details would need to be completed once you scan your first barcode. Some airport staff were there to help and answer my queries, so don’t worry if you are stuck at any question.
Step 4: Take your flight and arrive at KLIA
Once you have passed the immigration part, you would need to take your Covid PCR test. There are a lot of staff to help so you won’t get lost. First, you need to register so be ready with your boarding pass, Passport and letter of Undertaking. Second, take Covid PCR test and pay RM150 ( I think it’s free of charge for students). Cash and card payment are accepted. Third, register with the quarantine station section, they would arrange transportation and hotel accordingly. You will be given a bag of snack at this point ( a bottle of water, biscuit, cake and fruit juice).
Yay, you have passed all the paper work! Now, get your baggage and queue for the transportation to arrive. The staff will guide you where to queue.
P/S: My Covid-19 test result was obtained verbally through the hotel's call two days later.
Step 5: Get to your quarantine hotel
Once your bus has arrived, the airport staff will help everyone to spray their luggage with disinfectant. They also helped with loading your heavy baggage to the bus compartment.
Set off..
Once your bus has arrived at the hotel, the hotel staff will repeat the luggage disinfection before everyone gets off the bus. After that, everyone will undergo disinfection one by one before getting into the hotel for check in.
Step 6: Check in and complete hotel payment
So when I checked in, I was told it was only 13 nights for my stay, RM150 per night so the total payment was RM1950. Payment can be done by cash, card or online banking. The payment was including the food (breakfast, lunch and dinner) and your room. I was pretty lucky that I was arranged to stay in a five stars hotel, Sama-sama KLIA. The room is decent and spacious. Food was also well prepared. One of my questions before coming back was would I be starving in the hotel? The answer is Nooooo, in fact they are providing too much food for me! Until a point that I called to the reception and asked them to provide only half portion of rice and no more bottled water!
Food was prepared in this format by my quarantine hotel:
A. Breakfast: Main + Snack + Fruit + Bottled water
Those could be:
Main - Fried Noodle, Nasi Lemak, Roti Canai..
Snack: Sandwich, Croissants, Muffin..
B. Lunch: Main (Rice + 1 Meat + 1 Veggie) + Fruit + Bottled water
C. Dinner: Main (Rice + 1 Meat + 1 Veggie) + Dessert + Bottled water
P/S: As you could probably see from my photos below, I had quite a number of spicy dishes during my stay. But hey don't be fooled by the colour, not all of them were curry, sometimes it was TomYam fish and sometimes Rendang chicken. Although I am not a huge fan of spicy dish, they were all very delicious. Perhaps they were the chef's specialties:)
Step 7: Complete your second Covid test few days before check out
WIP
Emergency during your 14 days Quarantine
Very unfortunately, my grandpa was admitted to hospital one day before my flight. Due to his critical condition, I emailed to Health department and applied to be exempted from quarantine. They replied promptly on the same day and my request was rejected, however they have approved myself to take time off to visit my grandfather. I have visited my grandfather twice in my 8 days quarantine so far. If any of you come across a similar situation and would like to find out more relevant procedure, please feel free to send me drop me a message.
In summary, I personally would give 8/10 for the whole quarantine experience. Why the missing 2/10? I felt that the whole procedure is good and there are staff everywhere to help, however I think the arrangement for the registration could be slightly more obvious so that PUS (People Under Surveillance) could be more informed throughout the whole journey. For instance, I was not informed where I would be staying until I got to the hotel. Perhaps staff in the KLIA could inform the PUS where their destination is before getting on the bus.
Why 8/10? Helpful and heart warming staff, especially when I was applying my time off to visit my grandfather at hospital, the staff has helped me generously in arranging it ( requesting from Jawatan Negeri, requesting state crossing permit, liaising with hospital, etc). Other than that, hygiene aspects for the whole procedure, all staff in the KLIA and hotel were in PPE, disinfection for upon our arrival, extra effort for my time off ( despite my negative test result, it was mandatory for me to wear PPE and take designated route in the hotel and hospital during my visits, under circumstances accompanied by quarantine station’s staff). 5 stars hotel and food delivered to you every few hours, hey what else can you complain about?
I would like to say a big thank you to all of the frontline workers. Thanks for putting effort in making Malaysia a safer country. The quarantine station’s staff who accompanied me during my visits told me that he hasn't seen his family for 6 months because of his job. He is basically risking his health to be a front line worker and I am sure there are so many frontline workers are facing the same thing.
Thanks for being our heroes, you might think what you are doing is small but without all of these small efforts, how could we get the big impact?
Note: I'd like to reiterate that this is just based on my experience and opinions, things might be varied at different times.