So, having sent the plane off on its way to Kathmandu, I leaped on to the squeaky clean world of Silkair from Singapore and rushed off to the Lion City. I cudda gone 30 mins earlier on Royal Air Cambodge, but thought that too much of a good thing, so opted for Singaporean efficiency instead, which of course, it was. Perfect looking crew, doing all that they had been trained to do and more. SIN airport still the world’s best (sorry if I’m repeating myself here, but after all those years in airports, when you find something as wonderful as this, then you just have to continue to be impressed). Jumped into a cab – it being Good Friday here (rather than, confusingly in Cambodia, New Year – honest), the place was dead and I was at Raffles in record time. Mate Richard was there – mucho apologies that they were 100% full, so he cudn’t give me a room for the day (what is the world coming too ??) so I went off to the Spa and had a nice massage from a sweet girl who tried no tricks and felt much relaxed afterwards and lay out on the long colonnaded balcony and went to sleep for a while (terminal exhaustion being the order of the afternoon). Nothing like being wrapped up in a nice thick toweling robe and lying out on a day bed in sultry tropical air and pretending to be thinking deep thoughts (like what did I want for dinner?) and in reality passing out from terminal exhaustion. Then had nice dins there in a trendy restau and a couple of glasses of red wine for the health and instead of going to bed, which I would have much preferred, back to the airport for the 0120 (jeeeeeeez) flight to Johannesburg.
ONLY another 10 hours of flying with the night, but fortunately the Biz Class was light and I had a spare seat next to me which is a great psychological help, so I popped a pill and refused all offers of food ( I think they owe me a refund for all the meals I’ve turned down) and slept for a whole 8 hours, which is more than I had done in bed the previous two nights. Typical Singapore efficiency all the way and just how those girls survive in their skin tight uniforms is a miracle – each one is totally made to measure and if your waist goes over about 18 inches then you are in trouble. Had a good chat with the very mature Chief Purser guy who had started with them a long time ago and went dreamy eyed over the mention of the B707. He said he could never imagine how planes had changed and just grown and grown.
The former Jan Smuts Airport, now politically renamed Johannesburg International, in the dawn. Planes falling out of the sky from all over the place. I now had a 7 hour wait, but of course to me it was later in the morning, so the body clock was UP. Fortunately Air Seychelles in Jo’burg gives its Biz pax access to the BA lounge, which in good corporate image style, is the same, new open plan, modern, aren’t we trendy design and has nice comfy chairs and lotsa snax and sarnies and various other goodies. The nice motherly soul running the place promised she would wake me up in case I had gone into drool mode by then. So there I sat, catching up on Brit papers and fueled by endless cups of coffee to prevent the aforementioned drool happening. But it did become boring in the end – that awful feeling of knowing that you didn’t have a night in bed. I went for a walkabout. The departures level there has been totally transformed from the drabness of the old days and now true to form of most airports, has become a shopping mall that just happens to have airplanes attached at some of the exits. And eventuallee the Air Seychelles plane arrived and it was turned around and a 100% pax load boarded, mostly S Africans either resident there or going on their hols. Announcements made in both English and Creole, which sounds like a drunken Frenchman with his teeth out. Sort of French noise but most of the rest is a mystery.
You get a break.
timothyvalentinestravels 