Tag: changi airport

April 2001 Part 4. I take on Our Sharon, a Qantas cabin crew of many years and reach a compromise worthy of the UN.

We now see so many repeat customers, mostly nice and a few less than. If I were a Mormon, then I would have a chance of hitting a REAL fortune, as we have a Mormon family gang with us again, from Seattle too, of all places.

One of the daughters has dumped her husband (who came last time and I thought he was a weed) and is now obviously in the market for another and I get on like a house on fire with mother, who has all the lolly (00000dles of it), so have already suggested that I come over to the other side and become a client and told them I would know how to get them upgraded into suites everywhere, which they could easily afford anyway, but of course don’t …. I meantersay, Mom is presumably footing the bill for the current outing and not getting much in the way of change from $200,000 and they have come back every year for the last 4 …. so do the maths yourselves and u can see what a nice idea it would be to become part of the family ! Ah me, such is life!! Don’t know what my friends in Iran would make of it all – their eyes just cross completely when I tell them how much money these people are spending.

I really don’t understand some of these airlines. Here we are, all 15 of us in the Business Class cabin of a 747 and the bloody crew determines that we have 4 hours flight from Darwin to Singapore and it is 4:30pm and we should eat dinner immediately. Basicaly, they just want to get the meal service done and over with, so they can skive off the rest of the flight. Ha I say to that. I tell the Japanese/0z f/a that  No, I wud like to eat later – throws her for a complete loop – do I or don’t I want to eat ? – yes, but not now – not now ? but we are serving now … we start to get into a loop -she gives up – next thing, Big Sharon, a seasoned Sinneysider comes in to the scene – but we are cooking the food now …. so I says, well bugger the hot food, I’ll just have a salad and some cheese later – how about that? Hnmunm – almost seemed something that was going to cause a riot in the galley.

GIVE ME A BREAK – I point out nicely, that with 4 hours and 15 pax and it being only late afternoon, they could do the whole meal service (which on Qantas Biz is not exactly extensive) in one hour flat. We settle on the salad and cheese compromise. Am v pleased to observe that there are 3 other pax who did not eat either – felt like pointing THAT out to KoKo (yup, a female high executioner) and our Sharon, as further proof but felt my point was made.

Changi airport, Singapore continues to amaze me. I meantersay, I was off the plane, did a longish walk to immigration, which was deserted as always, through them, with the offer of a candy too, around the corner to the first bag belt, where the Biz bags had already come up first of course (they wud be AMAZED to hear that this is not ALWAYS the case elsewhere) and through the non-existent customs and straight out to a waiting cool taxi, driven by a man in white gloves and all this within 20 mins of getting off the plane. Here it’s the norm – almost anywhere else it’s called a miracle.

And for those of u who want touches of Ammurrica home, there at the departure gate next morning, they are playing WHEEL OF FORTUNE with Vanna and all -Some of you would never have boarded the flight ….

Now later, in flight from Singapore to Kota Kinabula on the Malaysian end of Borneo. And wud you bloody believe, on a Malaysian 737, with all of 20 pax and leaving at 1005 for a 2:25 mins flight, they have done LUNCH immediately after take off – I may have to go down to the back galley and have a few gentle words of wisdom here, as the crew is all young and may benefit from my road warrior status. And why would Malaysian Airlines, with all its sources of cheap labor, have its sick bags made in Switzerland ??  Inquiring minds want to know (or who got some huge kickback for the contract, cos it sure is fishy ….)   Thomas, being Swiss, do you have an insight?

Had a very nice night, thank you chez Raffles. Richard Yap, me mate there, was waiting and I was whisked off to my suite without having to stop for a second. It’s kinda frightening when the lady butler was standing outside the door to the suite, waiting for me and my retinue and she had to show me how to insert the key into the lock and turn it – nothing unusual about that -insert key and turn – they just wanted to make sure I understood ! Oh dear oh lor, I must be looking even worse than I thought. I then had to have a detailed, inch by inch explanation of exactly what worked what inside the room, most of which I cudda probably worked out for myself. They did presume I could turn the taps on and off and flush the loo, but otherwise nothing went unexplained. Best thing was the arrival a few mins later of a tray with two nice flutes of champagne and the caviar from Iran that I had left with Richard while I went to Oz (see above ref Oz health regs – they wudda swiped it and incinerated it too, which would have caused many tears before bedtime!). So we had a maxi caviar feast as it had to be eaten and I was determined that it WOULD be eaten and none left to waste.

Consequently, did not need dinner and fell into bed at 2130 and finally slept til the alarm went off at 0645. No such thing as a lie in is permitted anywhere on my sked,and in fact 0645 almost qualifies as one!

Yet more to come from the top of Malaysia…what do you know about orang outangs?

Going Around the Other Way. August 2001. Part 3. Danang or bust, in the soupy summer heat.

Well now, here we are in sweaty Saigon Airport (it may technically be Ho Chi Minh, but we old timers still call it Saigon and so do most of the locals). Arrived here on the Vietnam Airlines, A320 from Singapore, where I had my usual night of luxury chez Raffles. They even sent the maroon stretch BMW to find me, so I had a chauffeur in a peaked cap and had to resist waving to the masses from my acres of room in the back. Oh boy, I can be bought! I had come up there from Darwin on the Qantas, just a 4 hour hop. Very ancient 747, one of their originals and a fairly similar vintage crew too, but they were good and even managed to do the meal service at the right time! Changi airport is still working miracles, though I should have a whinge and say that I had to wait at least 4 mins for the bags to come up and mine was only number 7, so seems like things are slipping a bit.

Anyway, Saigon is of course great for the likes of me. The immigration form to get in has a few pearls of wisdom on the back – many instructions as to what is permitted to bring in, so along with the standard ban on narcotics and ammunition (good thing I had left mine at home), you should be warned that also the import of “subversive materials, children’s toys having negative effects on personality development, social order and security” are also going to get you into deep dudu, so just watch out when traveling with kids in case you end up in an immigration holding pen here (which would probably not be very nice). You should also leave behind all “toxic chemicals and species of wild animals” – so much to remember already you might just never leave home. Anyone walking off the aircraft with a tiger on whose back are strapped a dozen hand grenades, will not be warmly welcomed.

The crew on the aircraft were very sweet, the girls in their traditional au dai – flowing very thin material pants, tight at the top and bell bottom as they go down and then the high necked, long sleeved, skin tight top, which divides into two long floating panels front and back.

In SGN (see they haven’t even changed the three letter code to HCM) I was met by me ole mate Huy, who is a very switched on 30 year old local guide, who seems to find me the funniest thing on two legs. Whatever I say to him, has him totally creased up. We once spent a week together and he was still laughing at the end, so he gets a medal for hanging in there. I had thought he was coming to Danang with me (I am just in transit today) but he has to stay here and another poor soul will be waiting for me there. We went over the road of a beer, in a very very sweaty airport restaurant – amazingly non a/c, which I wudda thought was impossible around here, so we drank beer and dripped it out simultaneously, as it was pouring outside and the sweat was just running down my legs.

I am now perched in the domestic deps. area, along with what seems to be most of the population of SGN. Hard to believe that Vietnam Airlines uses prerecorded departure announcements and the English tape is done by a perfect sounding English female voice who could get a job at the BBC, so carefully enunciated is her delivery. Good thing too, so that I am not trying to listen out for a fractured Vietnamese voice, which is unable to pronounce any consonants. Those p.a’s done by someone with nothing but vowels to offer, can be total mysteries and you have to keep going and hunting someone down to interpret them. And the flight is one hour late too, so plenty more time to observe the scene.

Now there is a huge thunderstorm raging – sort of thing that would close JFK for hours, but here it is so normal that the flights are still operating – not a place for the faint hearted flyer around here!

We finally staggered off the ground and the storm must be going the other way, as its quite smooth. Fortunately most people who were originally booked on this delayed flight moved to another one which was leaving a whole 10 mins earlier – I played a hunch and thought that a full 767 would NOT go when they said and that an empty ATR would, so stayed put and won, as the 767 was still there when we leaped into the luft. Stick with moi and I shall get you there first.

So anyway, I’m here in Danang and have been running around like a soul possessed. S000per deluxe hotel like something out of Bali, with vast areas of open sided polished hardwood floors, but full right now with an Australian incentive group – they are all successful supermarket owners, so somewhat far removed from my type of client – in fact the very opposite end of the spectrum – brings out the worst snob in me I know and I just want Hyacinthe Bucket to arrive and give them a few clue on social behaviour.  The luxurious Furama Resort hotel, is good and on miles of white sand beach (the celebrated China Beach, which now seems to extend half way up and down Viet Nam’s very long coastline).  The beach is literally raked every morning by teams of women, to the degree it seems wicked to disturb the lines.  The Japanese must love it.