25 April 2008

The flight left Delhi at around midnight. It wasn’t the nicest flight I ever had. The video console wasn’t working very well. I didn’t seem to be able to get to the beginning of any of the movies. You may be wondering why I even wanted to? Well, it was a little difficult to sleep. The economy class is quite literal. There’s not a lot of space to stretch out. Then there was the collection of babies surrounding me. (Two in front, two either side, and a couple further back). One little boy was quite mischievous until his mother put him on her lap for takeoff. Just like that he was out to it. It was like turning of a switch. The others weren’t as cooperative. I think at least one of them was sick. When someone is sick on a plane it takes a while for the aroma to dissipate. In this case it took nearly all the flight. (Kinda puts you of your meal and puts a real dampener on sleeping).
Needless to say, by the time we reached Singapore, I wasn’t exactly in a coherent state of mind.
There are certain things you have to know before you arrive at Singapore airport. For example, its really useful to have a change of clothes with you if you are staying in the transit area. I thought that for this flight I would put both my bags in the hold. Save carrying them around with me. I asked the ‘check in chic’ at Delhi to direct my luggage to Singapore and I would pick them up from there. Little did I know that I was required to pick up my luggage after having gone through immigration. Plus I had a time limit. If I didn’t get to the Transit hotel within one hour I forfeited my room that I had reserved for me. Then there was the fact that we had arrived in Terminal two and I needed to go to Terminal three where the hotel was and where I would eventually get the next flight.
I went down to immigration and talked to one of the staff there. She directed me back up stairs to the Transfer desk. The lady there made some enquiries and then escorted me to the luggage carousel. I was only allowed to get what I needed from my bags. The bags would then be redirected to my next plane.
Then I needed to get over to Terminal three. There is a really neat rail system connecting all the terminals. You just hop in the little train which comes around every four or five minutes and within a few minutes you are at the next terminal. Quite cool really. I have to say the staff here at Singapore are really friendly and helpful. When you as blurry eyed as I was and your emotions are a little frayed, it so nice to be looked after so efficiently.
When I got into my room, I had a shower and promptly fell asleep. I think I probably would have slept right through to the next boarding except a family took the room next to mine and the kids were curious as to where a certain door led to. In this case it happened to lead to my room. (It was locked). The rattle woke me up. I didn’t mind. I had done the same thing earlier thinking it was a cupboard or something.
I got up and went for a walk in the Terminal. His is the new one that has been built for the big Airbus. All very flash. Roomy. Full of shops that if you tried buying something from would empty your bank account on one item. But, hey, it was great to have a look around. I even had Burger King for lunch.
Close to the Transit hotel is a cinema. It plays movies all day and is free. I popped in there for a movie. More to pass the time than anything. After that I decided to go back to the room and catch a few more winks. I did (catch some more winks. Its amazing how tame they are after an exhausting six hour flight through the night. They are so easy to catch). I woke with a start wondering where I was. Once I brought things into perspective, I freshened up and left the hotel. I still had an hour or two before the boarding call so I wondered of to Terminal One. I was in search of other shops. There were more shops in in this terminal, but no less expensive. You can get your GST back whilst you are in the Transit Terminals but I think the prices are inflated to accommodate the shop owners.