To Heathrow and Beyond

And so, at last, we are off.


Following a sumptuous meal, courtesy of Joni and Fiona the morning of our departure came. The journey down to Heathrow went relatively well. It improved dramatically when the family behind us got off and Irene no longer had her hair pulled by an unruly toddler behind us. Heathrow is a nightmare to navigate. A helpful officer in the bus station sent us down to find the hotel shuttle. Once down another official sent us up. Somewhere between up and down we found the row of shuttle buses. I am not sure that we would ever find them again. It was a bit like finding the 'Hogwarts Express' on platform 10 and three quarters.

View from the Ibis Hotel

The hotel was modern and it was one of the smallest that we have ever stayed in.It was just possible for me to get to my side of the bed. (Wait until I get to the Singapore bit.) We had a view of the runway from our window. The hotel meal was reasonable and we slept for some of the time, before setting off for terminal 3.


Transfer to the aircraft went quite smoothly and we found our seat on the very large aircraft. We had seats near the emergency door. This gave us massive leg room, but no window or seats in front to stow baggage. I joked with the stewardess who sat facing us when it came to the evacuation instruction which told us that passengers near the emergency doors may need to assist the crew. I made it clear that in an emergency I would be out of the door before she had even thought of leaving her seat. Our fellow passenger was a young man off on his first job. He would transfer to Perth and become a navigator on a seismological survey ship. Some people have exciting lives. As he left I wished him well.


Singapore airport is spacious and clean. We were able to get a shuttle to the hotel, later to be discovered, false impression that we would get a shuttle back.

Le Peranakan Hotel

The hotel was off the beaten track.It was clean, but the rooms were exceedingly small. The bed had very little space at the bottom and butted up to the wall at the side. Having arrived early we left our luggage at the hotel. I have to say that the young man who worked there was very courteous and helpful; but, he did have a masters in hospitality.

High Rise Washing Day

Some of the thousands of bicycles for hire

Coconut Palms and Ships

What to do in a storm

With a desire to get properly set up in the hotel we set off for a walk to the south shore. It has a wide green area and a beach. Hundreds of large ship are anchored just off shore. They have made a great job of the park area. There are wide walking/jogging paths running completely separately from the bicycle/skating paths. There are zebra crossings over the latter paths. Coconut trees line the pathways and there are shelters all along the front and instructions use them in the event of electrical storms. However,  there is to be no 'residing' in them or barbecuing in those not designated for the purpose.

What not to do in a shelter

Immediately we noticed an interesting use of language. Almost all official signs are English alone. But the English is very precise. For instance they talk about bicycling where we would say cycling. We are happy to use context to clarify words. We know that we would not be talking about any other kind of cycling when we use the word on road signs. 'Residing' is to us an over use of the word, but the pictures show more clearly that no one is to sleep on the benches with a bag by the side and their shoes off. We notice that more than one person had totally ignored the instruction.


There were many signs warning us to ring the police on 999 if we saw 'suspicious' people getting off boats or people bringing trolley loads of containers ashore.


Macdonald's was our salvation for refreshment. But once again there were differences. All the items were prefixed with 'Prosperity' as in 'Prosperity Burgers'. Apple pie was Prosperity 'Pineapple Pie'. This is stark contrast with the UK's 'Austerity Apple Pie'.


And so to the hotel. A friendly face greeted us and took us, somewhat apologetically, to our room which was, indeed, small. First, I went down to ask about towels. However, they were already in the room. Then, as the temperature soared to 30 degs I went to ask about air-con. I had not realised that we actually had to switch it on. What a relief. After settling in we set off to find food. As I have said the area was a little off the beaten track. The Thai looked a bit suspicious and didn't open till late and so we took local advice and crossed to the 'Fish and Chip Shop'. It was actually a micro-brewery. I had the pork ribs and Irene had the snapper and chips. Next door we bought slices of pineapple pie and bottles of juice. These we consumed on the large balcony outside our room in the heat of the evening. The balcony was decorated with a waterfall and a running stream.

Supper on the balcony

We were asleep by 8.30 and slept quite well beyond 7.00. Having packed our bags and stored them the first Singapore adventure began. The hotel manager was clever. He met us leaving our room. He had seen us on the CCTV and remembered that we were going to leave our luggage. He avoided the task of having to take our luggage back up after we had bought it down.


The intrepid explorers set off to catch the 15 bus and came across the first language problem, but were eventually able to pay the $1.20 fare to the 'Eunos' metro station. The metro was much like London underground except that it was clean, cheap and efficient with trains running on time. We even got a dollar refund every time we got off. The major scary bit was crossing the roads. They have very wide junctions and at no time does the traffic completely stop. Even when the traffic lights say you have 30 seconds vehicles still turn in to the crossing pedestrians.


The Singapore Botanical gardens are beautifully laid out and we particularly enjoyed the orchid gardens. Our breakfast and lunch at the central restaurant were very pleasant and and well priced. By the afternoon it was getting too hot and we opted to arrive at the airport early and enjoy their air-con. We made an almost perfect reversal of our path. The bus driver recognised us and this time showed us the fare on a piece of card and smiled when I gave him the exact change. However, we got off two stops too soon. We had not realised that all three bus stops on the street had the same name.

Me in the orchids

Irene in the orchids

A terrapin in the lake

Singapore departure hall

Although we were early we checked in immediately. There was a slight scare at the check in. When I looked at my tickets they said that we flew on Saturday. My watch said that it was Friday and it felt like Friday. A quick enquiry confirmed that thanks to jet lag we were disoriented. And so, minus our luggage we found a restaurant and shared a pizza, washed down with ice cold 'Stella' followed by a nice ice-cream. It did not seem long before we boarded the aircraft (a normal sizes one) and sped off at almost 700 mph to NZ.