We bid our good byes to Penang on a day of festivities.

That morning my oldest’s boyfriend woke up with gastro. I was like oh no. Not good as we were supposed to check out at 12pm. Flight to Singapore was at 5pm. Since there was no online check in for Scoot we had to be at the airport by 3pm to check in.

S was like mum how can we check out? He still needs the loo? Stuff was coming out of him both ends.

So then I told hubby look on way back from the chemist ask for a late check out. That way he’s got somewhere to go.

Meanwhile we loaded him up with stuff. First to go in was the Hydralyte a salt replacement fluid. Then the Imodium to help with the runs. Panadol for his headache.

The Imodium went in and came back out. Silly me only packed one packet of 8 just in case. Well with 2 gone we gave another 2. Still it didn’t hold.

So went in two Lomotils.That seemed to hold it. He was still nauseous.

The trip to the chemist didn’t go well. They had no Maxolon or Zofran for the nausea. Thus hubby rang back to see if I had any Nausicalm left.

I’d packed it just in case for the plane sickness. And of course I had plenty. I calculated that we had 4 plane trips and since there were 6 of us I had brought along 4 packets thus 24 tablets altogether.

I didn’t have to use any for the shorter trips and so had spares. Gave him one of those as well. He was drugged up to the hilt.

The result was one drowsy kid but at least he’s holding down the Hydralyte and he slept.

Next bit was the logistics of getting to the airport. The festivities were supposed to finish at 1pm. The front desk assured me there won’t be any problems. We’d book a van to come at 2pm. It didn’t come. At 2:40pm still no signs. The chariot was still blocking the street.

Problem with Penang in the heritage district is the one way streets. We ended up walking a couple of blocks down strategically to catch two Grabs so that they had right of way to the airport.

I was resolved to kiss our flights good bye. My calculations was that I needed to be at the airport by 3pm and well it takes 30 minutes to get there by car.

With the festivities blocking the streets it would take longer.

In the end we got there at 3:10pm. I was so thankful I gave him 100RM instead of 56RM. He was shocked but managed a thank you.

As soon as I went into the gates and saw the queues my heart dropped. It was a mile long and several abreast. Thank goodness I didn’t book Air Asia.

I was elated to find there was only 3-4 in line at the Scoot counter. Check in was quick. The guy at the counter told us we needed to go through to immigration ASAP as the lines are long or else we won’t make it to the flight.

We made it to the gate with 20 minutes to spare. I was silently thanking whoever was up there for helping us. For I didn’t think we were going to make it.

The thing that jolted me this trip was the kids getting sick. In my mind it was never a possibility now that they are older. After all the two that got sick were 22-23.

Guess there’s always that risk with travelling.