OK now in Singapore waiting for Mr Qantas to show up – the flight is 4 hours late – not a nice idea as this means we shall leave at 0230, which is way past my bedtime. And I spent last night on a plane too, chez Singapore Airlines, Dubai to Singapore. After Iran Aseman, I was in a different world ! The flight left at 2200 and after 8 hrs was due into SIN at 0700 local, so I swallowed a good knock out pill and waived them all goodnight. It was empty enough for me to move seats and not have anyone else breathing in my ears, so despite repeated offers from the crew to sample their fine dining, I was out like a light for the whole flight.
Singapore in the dawn was steamy as usual. I hopped a taxi to Raffles, as I now have a good contact their ex Cambodia, so he was waiting and put me right into their health spa for much freshening up, which is always a reviver. Did an official tour of the hotel, which has been much tarted up since I was last through its portals. I am returning twice there within the next 10 days and will be given a posh suite of my choosing – I DO LIKE having friends in fancy watering places….
Of course they would love our business should we ever decide to drop in. Had a good massage later and a drink in the celebrated Long Bar, home of the Singapore Sling which tried and decided was a terrible waste of good gin – they serve about 1000 a day – yes 1000. Every tourist who comes to SIN has to make a pilgrimage to Raffles. I sat in the lobby for a while (having a slight attack of the terminal exhaustion) and now must feature in many Japanese tourists photos – I tried to adopt an interesting pose and not look like a derilict, mouth agape, between flights.
OK now many hours later, somewhere over the North of Oz. Qantas was not having a good night in Singapore, as this plane coming in late, with many pax connecting to London on their flt from Sydney made them delay the London-bound one too, which was not a popular decision with the Singapore joiners. One poor Brit, my vintage, actually was in tears in the lounge as he was now going to miss some wedding – Qantas Duty Manager girl was v v sympathetic and certainly tried to do what little she could and he was at least nice with her and at one point I thought they were BOTH going to weep together – stiff upper lip Brit in tears, with much blowing of nose and coming to terms with a no win situation was our entertainment.
Lounge run by a very camp Singaporean BA guy, who made effusive p.a.’s and I think had we taken a vote, he would have been taken outside and pushed off the roof.
So eventualee, we were put on our plane, an exceedingly old 747 of the original vintage, which had been delayed waiting for a radio spare to come up from Sydney to Cairns on its northbound flight. Of course the luck was still against us, as no less than 5 pax managed not to board, which seemed almost impossible as the airport was virtually empty, but also BIG, so if they were asleep in a corner, they may not have been seen – so of course we had to have their bags removed. Oy oy oy. Finally we bumped up through some vast thunder clouds and I threw a blanket over myself and put the earplugs in and dozed off. 4 hours later we bumped our way back through the clouds and landed in Darwin in pouring rain – absolutely galloning down it was. “To speed things up here” he said, “passengers going through to Cairns should stay on board and we shall be here for 50 mins”. The reality was that we were there for 90 mins as yet again someone failed to board …. And also there was a vast amount of static coming through the p.a. system for some unknown reason, which was driving us all crazy. It’s turning into a night, or rather now, a day, that will never end. Just hope our cheerful Oz agents will be there to meet me and haven’t be sitting at the airport for hours and hours. Qantas crews need a great shake up – they are just going through the motions here – my Singapore girlfriends would be shocked rigid.
So I’m sending this one down the line from Cairns …. I know u are all breathlessly awaiting the next episode …. there will be more Oz stuff plus my visit to Sandakan in the Malaysian part of Borneo ( Vera, go get the map). Stay tuned to this channel and we shall be right back….
Hope u are all well ( and at least not as inside out as I am ….)
Tim
timothyvalentinestravels 