Tag: raffles

April 2001 Part 2. A long night, a Singapore Sling and another long night.

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

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.