I’ve arrived in Singapore. The day though wasn’t without its events.
All went well, I’m dropped at the airport, check-in at Canberra, go visit the Qantas club for a few coffees and rest. Get on the plane, the flight attendants gave me some tips for Singapore and they didn’t know much about Cambodia, although one was visiting Vietnam.
Now unfortunately my luggage couldn’t be checked all the way through, because my Jetstar flight went via Darwin and was thus domestic from Melbourne. Apparently though if it was international, they’d have checked my luggage through the whole way. Instead I picked up my bag, went upstairs and then looked at the Jetstar queue. Bugger that, I went to the mens room and came back. It was bigger…. So I joined the queue. 30 minutes passed and I could just see the Jetstar check-in desks. The whole time I’m queueing, people are jumping the queues, because their flights are being called and they turned up just on time. Eventually though they call all people on Darwin with international connections forward to a special line. Excellent I thought. I’ve only been here for an hour also thanking my lucky stars I allowed for a decent layover just in case. So while I stood in the special queue, everyone in front and behind me were still in the normal queue and got checked in and out of the queue. Then Hobart people got priority followed by Perth… Seriously, I was getting pissed off with Jetstar, basically because they couldn’t organise a queue even if it consisted of 3 people. At least 20 minutes later and getting close to 2 hours of riding the Jetstar line ride I was checked in and all the way to Singapore…. Apparently its different sometimes.
The flights were ok. I had seat 1D so right up front, no one leaning into me. it was ok.
We arrived in Singapore 30 minutes late, because of the queue stuff up meaning we left Melbourne 30 minutes late. I cleared immigration rather quickly and jumped in a cab. $28 Singapore dollars seemed cheap to me. Well the taxi driver told me everything there was to do and that I was staying in the Muslim area of town near the Sultan mosque or something like that. I’m staying at the 5Footway.Inn Project Sultan/Bugis. A bit of a mouthful. Anyway we arrived at my destination and the taxi fare was $21.55 Cheaper than the airport advertised fare. I offered a tip and he refused it. Then he said he could not give me exact change so he gave me a discount. I tried once more to tip the guy. He was rather friendly and helpful, but again he refused any tips. Maybe this is the standard for all Singapore taxi drivers or maybe he is the odd one out. I certainly wouldn’t have got lucky in Central Asia like that. I’d still be arguing over the fare.
Anyway I’m off to bed. I have a double bed thats a bunk, with a lounge area underneath it. Quite a novel way to use the space I thought.
