Snap and Scribble

 

The flight from Darwin to Singapore was relatively painless. It’s only three and a half hours anyway, and the departure time of around six thirty in the evening was about as good as you can get. It meant i had plenty of time to do what i needed to do before i left and to get to the airport in plenty of time at a reasonably leisurely pace.

I’d booked a room at the airport hotel for the night as i figured i wasn’t going to have enough time in Singapore to make it worthwhile traipsing into the city and trying to find a hotel – and then having to get back to the airport fairly early the next morning. So staying in the airport seemed like a good idea. But when i checked in and found out the room had no windows, i wasn’t so sure!

There’s an open-air swimming pool at Singapore airport – it’s run by the hotel and is free for guests. So the first thing i did after checking in was to go and have a swim. It was a great idea after getting off a plane – to be able to stretch out, get a bit of exercise, and fill your lungs with fresh air. Well, fresh-ish air anyway – it was an airport, after all!

After the swim i went to the Indian restaurant in the food court and had a masala dosa. It wasn’t as good as the one i’d had there the previous time i was in Singapore, about five weeks earlier. Then i checked my email, courtesy of the airport’s free wireless internet, and went to bed.

I didn’t sleep as well as i would have liked – mainly because of the lack of fresh air in the room – and i got up before six the next morning. The swimming pool didn’t open till seven, so i walked the whole length of the terminal one transit and shopping area and went up to the cactus garden to get some fresh air. The cactus garden is on the roof of terminal one and contains an impressive array of cactuses and similar plants from around the world. It’s a good spot to escape the air conditioning and breath some real air – although you have to keep out of the way of the smokers, who are a bit of a plague in most open-air situations these days.

I had a sandwich for breakfast and then went back to my room to pack my stuff up before having a swim. As the pool didn’t open till seven and my flight was due to leave at quarter past nine, i’d be pushing it a bit by going for a swim – as i had to go out through customs and then check back in again for the next flight.

I checked the flight indicators on the way back and i was puzzled and a little disturbed that i couldn’t see any sign of my flight on them. I wasn’t sure which terminal it was leaving from, so i checked all terminals and there was nothing. I went back to my room and checked the airport web site’s flights info too – and there was no sign of it there, either. I got a bit worried at this point and, as the pool hadn’t opened by about five past seven, i decided i really should go out to the departure hall and try and check in.

There was no travellers at all at passport control, as there obviously hadn’t been any flights yet that day. There was nobody in any of the booths, either, but a couple of immigration officers were hanging around and one of them took my passport and stamped it for me. I grabbed my checked-in bag, which was waiting for me at the baggage control office, along with a few other “lost and found” bags, and walked out through customs without anyone paying me any attention.

Then i had to find out where to check in for the flight to Sri Lanka. But that was easier said than done. In the end, i found the airport information desk and asked the woman there where Sri Lankan Airlines check-in was. She was puzzled and said there wasn’t a flight at that time – and when i checked the paperwork i had with me i found i’d made a mistake somewhere along the line. I’d compiled a list of all of the eleven flights i was taking on this trip and printed that out so i had all the information in one place. I’d also printed out the booking confirmation for each flight separately and, checking those things i found i’d somehow got the wrong flight number and time in the list. I wasn’t leaving at just after nine at all, i was leaving at four o’clock that afternoon. That meant i had seven hours longer in Singapore than i’d thought i had – which meant i could have slept longer and, anyway, it would have been worthwhile getting a room in a city hotel after all.

It also meant i wouldn’t have as long in Sri Lanka as i’d thought i would. In fact, my stay in Colombo would be so short it was hardly worth bothering. But, more importantly, it meant i’d better email the hotel i’d booked in Colombo and tell them not to send the car to pick me up at the time i’d requested it, but to send one several hours later. Luckily Singapore airport’s free wireless internet meant sending that email was as simple as turning on my laptop and firing it off.

Then i had to find something to do in Singapore for the next seven hours!

I dumped my bags at the left luggage service and caught the MRT train into the city. I had no real idea of the layout of Singapore as i’d only passed through the place very briefly the last time i was there – in 1995. That time i got off the ferry from the Indonesian island of Batam and walked to the railway station to catch the train to Kuala Lumpur and my memory of it was fairly hazy. I wanted to get to the water – which shouldn’t have been hard, as Singapore is an island – and i had a vague idea that the “City Hall” station might be near some water, so i went there.

The MRT has an interesting ticketing system – for a single journey, you get a smart card from the ticket machine, which you pay a deposit on. Then you put the card back into a ticket machine at your destination and get a refund. The platforms at the major stations have glass walls along the edges of them, with double sliding doors that match up with the doors of the train and open at the same time. So there’s a lot less noise and no danger of falling off the edge of the platform and under the train.

Anyway, i got to City Hall station and had a look around at street level. I couldn’t work out where the water might be and i ended up getting back on a train and going to the Harbour Front station instead. There was water there, but you couldn’t easily get to it. I wandered around for a while, wondering why the hell i was in this place, and eventually found my way through a big shopping centre to a walkway along the waterside on the other side. It wasn’t a pleasant spot though, really, and i didn’t stay long.

Next, i got the train back almost to City Hall, to Raffles Square station. Here i quickly found the river and walked along it for a while. It seemed to be a fair way from the ocean, which was where i really wanted to go, but there didn’t seem to be any easy way to get there. I got the idea that it may have once been a lot closer to the ocean, and that there was a lot of new reclaimed land where the ocean had once been. This may or may not be true, but i know they are reclaiming a lot of land from the ocean in Singapore nowadays.

I hung around until it was time to go back to the airport to check in again. I was exhausted and i couldn’t be bothered exploring any further. Singapore didn’t grab me really. Last time i was there i thought it was like a clean version of Sydney, but now the area round there reminded me of a weird cross between Sydney, Brisbane, and the Gold Coast.

I got back to the airport about one o’clock and checked in straight away. Then i went back to the airport hotel and had the swim that i’d missed out on that morning. Before too long i was in the air again, on my way to Sri Lanka.

Tags: Travel and Places // Add Comment »