Sibu Airport. Photo / Supplied
Brett Atkinson flies MH3690 from Kuching to Sibu.
The plane: An Aerospatiale/Alenia ATR 72, a zippy twin-engine turbo prop with 72 seats, flying under the MASWings banner, that's the smaller, domestic arm of Malaysian Airlines.
The class: Just the one, or as they say in Bahasa, Malaysia: "terdapat hanya satu kelas".
Cost: Book online and one-way fares are around $70.
My seat: 2A, sadly not Business Class, but I did get served my peanuts and tetrapak of Milo before anyone else.
Food and drink: See above.
Flight time: 45 minutes. Plenty of time to take in vistas of Borneo's northern coast and the sky-high calligraphy of caramel-coloured rivers meandering through rainforest. More prosaic and down to earth are the perfectly straight access roads reaching deep into sprawling palm oil plantations.
Entertainment: A free copy of the Borneo Post newspaper, and complete with siren and heavy breathing sound effects, quite probably the most entertaining onboard safety briefing I'll ever sit through.
Service: Friendly, informal, and just the ticket given the early start from Kuching. Expect to see the siren-making, heavy-breathing flight attendant on Malaysia's Got Talent very soon.
Fellow passengers: A friendly group of Sarawak locals keen to ask why I'm on board as the only Westerner flying to a regional airport with the IATA code, SBW. I'm pretty sure none had heard of New Zealand's code-hopping sports superstar.
The toilets: I didn't use them on a short flight, but the rest of the plane was spotless and modern.
Airport experience: Pick your own bag up off the trailer in front of Sibu's compact terminal, and grab a taxi into the city. If you're lucky, your cab driver might also give you a vegetarian samosa.
Would I take this flight again? When and if I'm back in Sarawak researching for Lonely Planet again, absolutely.
The father of two said crew called him an 'idiot' then said he couldn't fly with them.