We were up early before 6am. Took some photos at dawn from the hotel room balcony and breakfast was ready at 6.30am.  Tan and CJ Foo came to fetch us to the Tripoli’s domestic airport at 7.30am sharp.  Tan arranged the 10am flight via Buraq air.  He said the planes are newer compared to Libyan Arab Airline.

We told them about our water story at the hotel last night.  Foo laughed and commented that that is the libyan culture.  The moral of the story is: The libyans are always too nice to reject any request, but if you need water, make sure you get it yourself as you never know when the water will arrive!

There was not much to be impressed and talk about the domestic airport.  Realised that the flight timing on screen are not updated.

We arrived in Benghazi Domestic Airport about 11am in rainy day.  While we were waiting to pick up our checked-in luggage, there was an influx of libyans into the baggage area suddenly.  The whole place was so crowded and I saw people shaking hands and hugging when they saw their closed ones arrived.  Finally, we collected our luggage and met Dawod and Fekri.  They are the 2 libyans that will bring us to Benghazi.

In the midst of heavy rain, we quickly ran to the cars which were parked at a distance from the airport.  Another event happened, our car can’t move because there was a pick up that was blocking our way!  We experienced another culture difference, the libyans like to park anywhere they like!  All the cars in our lane were stucked because of the pick up.  Waited and waited and Dawod found the way out.  He reversed the car and squeezed through a small lane between 2 cars, mounted the car on the curb after a few attempts and drove the car on the curb and made our way out to the main road, Hurray!  We were totally impressed by his driving skills!

We decided to change our plans to tour Benghazi later because of the rain.  Instead, Dawod drove us to our villa at Al Marj.  The scenery along the way reminded us of some sights of the canyons we saw in USA, beautiful!

We arrived at the villa after slightly more than an hour, I am happy that they have arranged a nice room for us.  We were told that we have the only room with carpet and attached bathroom.  We met Chia, the construction manager, Rashid and Fazial, the 2 engineers.  Dawod offered to prepare lunch for us, so we went out with him to get some groceries.

We were showed to the office, just besides the villa when we were back.  The set up was simple but cosy.  Lunch was ready and I am impressed by the Italian cuisine spiced up by Dawod, yummy!  Look forward to more of such meals in future.