K M Cheng-Travel Journal: Europe (Balkans & the Adriatic, Europe) March 2019 D-15 (Home Sweet Home))

Day 15 Sunday 31 March 2019 (Final)

After our tour group's visit to Lake Bled & Bled Castle on this beautiful Sunday in Slovenia, it was time to fly home thus ending our 15 days package tour to Balkans & Adriatic with full of fond memories !

For home sweet home, our group had to take 2 Turkish Airlines flights ie Ljubljana > Istanbul (1,300km - 2hrs 15 mins) & Istanbul > Kuala Lumpur (8,380km - 10hrs 45 mins) - a long day & night to endure but our spirits were high as all of us were anxious to fly home & catch up with our families & indulge in our normal life activities again !

1) Buffet breakfast in Austria Trend Hotel, Ljubljana, Slovenia - I am going to miss the hotel buffet breakfasts from now on till I join another package tour one fine day in the near future !

2) Lunch in a local restaurant in Ljubljana - enough of western lunches & dinners our group had taken throughout the 15 day trip so from tomorrow onwards back to home cooked meals & eating our favorite food at our home place - LIFE goes on like a circle !

3) Arriving at the Ljubljana International Airport, Slovenia to board a Turkish Airlines flight departing Ljubljana 19.55 arriving Istanbul 00.15 (2 hrs 15mins)

4) A flight delay of 5hr 10 minutes in Istanbul - our original departure time (Istanbul > Kuala Lumpur) at 01.20 had been deferred to 06.30 - so all our tour members had to undergo a mental & physical stress "squating" in the airport from mid-night till the early morning - very stressful indeed due to unforeseen circumstances ! By the time we boarded our flight, the jet lag symptoms creeped into my body making me hard to rest & sleep - so I resorted to watching in flight movies …… till my eyes were tired & had a power nap & short sleep in an attempt to recover my energy a little bit !

Due to a flight delay, all our members were given a free food (ie a sliced of pizza) & a bottle of drinking water by Turkish Airlines - a public relation exercise so our members just had to accept this kind gesture and enjoyed a piece of Turkish pizza of our choice at the airport at this late hours of the night !

In-flight meals provided by Turkish Airlines for our flight from Istanbul to Kuala Lumpur (flight time 10hrs 45 mins)

Home Sweet Home - Arriving Kuala Lumpur 22.30 and my elder son picked us up at the airport & drove us home ! A good night sleep was all we needed when we arrived home ! But for the next 2 weeks, I have to sort out some 5,000 pictures I had taken from my mobile phone on this Balkans trip and begin the tedious job of posting a selection of pictures for my travel blog - hope my readers enjoy reading & feel free to leave any comments !

Hop on & Hop off to toilet runs while travelling in Balkans ! high tide or low tide, the sight of a toilet is a savior to all travelers on a bus run after a few hours on the highway ! Visiting a toilet is like home sweet home especially you are urgently in need of one !

An interesting observation about toilets in Balkans. At the entrance of the Plitvice Lakes National Park, I spotted this interesting notice board …. yes, our tour members spent 15 days walking like a mud crab in major tourist places in Balkan states, indeed I took some 5,000 pictures in Balkans, left my footprints the 4th time in Balkans (2010-2011, 2014 & 2019) but as a senior citizen, I had to visit toilets umpteen times in many of the highway stops, paying a minimum of Euro$0.50 (Rm2.30) per pee or at times Euro$1.00 but never mind, in Rome pay as Romans do ! Trying to spot a McDonald fast food outlet in major cities of Balkan offering free toilet service may be difficult to come by !

and I had taken a few pictures of the word "toilets" written in Balkan language but it was a bit of struggle as I was not able to figure out which cities or country of origin these words come from ! Memory lapse perhaps ! But after tracing the pictures in sequence from my mobile phone, I was able to solve the jigsaw puzzle !