It was the semester break at the university UIA in June 1998. A friend of mine invited me to his village in Sandakan, Sabah.
I agreed to accept his invitation as I had never been to Sabah before. Although I had already made another plan around that same time.
It was a weekday on the third week of June 1998 that we flew in to Kota Kinabalu Airport from Subang Airport as it was cheaper to fly at about midnight with MAS.
We arrived at Kota Kinabalu International Airport past two o'clock in the morning.
There was hardly anyone at the airport with only one counter that was opened but all the passengers walked past the counter without any immigration nor custom check.
We stayed on till 6am and alighted to Sandakan where his hometown was located.
While in Sabah I managed to go to Sepilok, Kundasang, Ranau and Kinabalu Park.
I did not manage ro climb Mount Kinabalu due to poor weather condition at that time.
On July 1, as I was going through the immigration to catch my flight, I was detained by the Immigration for not having proper documents to fly out of Sabah. I did bring my passport to enter Sabah. Instead I only had my IC.
They questioned how did I get in ro Sabah without a passport.
They could have just stopped me when I was entering Sabah without a passport but why did they allow me to enter? I was preplexed and condused.
They accused me of being an illegal immigrant with a fake IC that could easily available in Sabah. I showed them my university's matric card.
Only after I made two phone call to Sam my Sabahan friend who invited me to his hone village and another call to my lawyer friend in KL, only then, they released me with a stern warning.
Upon my release, leaving the interrogation room, my only concern was would I be able to carch my fligjt back to KL as scheduled? Would I miss my flight to KL? I was very nervous.
I ran as fast as I could to the boarding gate as my name was announced through the airport's P A systen.
Luckily I was able to catch the flight with a slight delay.
I reached KL that afternoon but we did not land at Subang Airpiort. Instead we landed at the brand new KLIA in Sepang that had opened a few days earlier. The airport was modern, huge and beautiful with lot of greens and trees surrounding the brand new airport.
But the system was not as beautiful as its architecture when the airport had disruption including with its Baggage Handling System causing many passengers were stranded waiting for their luggage.
I was lucky as I had always travelled as light as possible bringing only a knapsack on my back and a hand luggage without having to check them in.
Off I went leaving the new airport with the concept of a 'symbiosis between architecture and the forest' but with a few hiccups on its first few days.
Later that week, on Saturday July 4th, again I was at the KLIA. So many people were there. Not just passengers but KLIA had became tourist attraction to both local and visitors to our country.
One of the most amazing things about KLIA was that the Main Terminal Building was designed in such a way that it was an ecological infrastructure by adopting the 'Airport in the forest, forest in the airport' concept.
I was at the KLIA not just to admire its concepts but fly out of Malaysia.
On 4th of July 1998 that Saturday afternoon, I reached Hong Kong. I landed at the Kai Tak International Airport in the heart of Hong Kong metropolitan, one of the most difficult airports in the world to land.
A week later, I was in Lantau Island, far from the busy bustling Hong Kong Metropolitan. I was on my way to the brand new Chek Lap Kok International Airport that was just being opened a few days earlier on a man made Island.
A bit chaotic, to check in and to go through the very long queu of security check took me almost three hours. Luckily I managed to catch my flight back to KL in the nick of time. We landed safely at KLIA in Sepang, that night.
Within that two weeks, I was flying in and out through four different airport to two same destinations with both countries having brand new aiports within a week apart of their openings from each other.
