The Return Journey

On Friday morning the shuttle bus arrived and our lady driver happily loaded up our bags and we were off to the airport. The departure area is quite new and we had a brief, but pleasant wait to board. There was one hiccup; the check in clerk needed to have the credit card which we had used to book the flight. This was difficult since in the first place our cards had been changed after booking and secondly the card used to make the ticket date change was not ours. In every other case Ian had used my card to book things for us. The ticket office clerk was surprised that there was any issue about a sum as little as $27 and sent us back to check in and tell them to give us our boarding passes. We stood for a while in the front of a number of queues saying that we were not pushing in, before I realised that we were waiting at the a different airline's check in desks.

Auckland Airport

Piha Beach - Last View

As we sat in the lounge waiting for our row to be called we were approached by a lady working for the New Zealand government. She was surveying tourists to find out about their stay. We tried very hard to describe the events of four months. There was no way that we could remember everything that we did, let alone remember how many day there was between each of them. We even told her about tourist destinations like 'Crystal Mountain' that she had never heard of. We completed the interview as our seat numbers were being called.

We had some spectacular views of Australia and Indonesia as we flew on to Singapore.

Entering Australia

The Outback

Two Pictures of Indonesia

Arriving in Singapore

It was just getting dark as we landed and an air-conditioned taxi transferred us through the 30 deg evening to our hotel. The concierge recognised us and explained that he was pleased that he could provide us with a better room than we had previously. We went straight to bed.

Bakery Breakfast

In the morning we had breakfast at the bakery opposite before catching a bus to Eunos MRT station to catch a train to City Hall. The MRT is a fabulously better system than London Underground. It is cheap, efficient and clean. Every part of it works well.

St Andrews Cathedral
near the Raffles Centre

At City Hall we got a view of the Raffles Centre and St Andrews Cathedral before walking on to Singapore River. We passed a serious game of Frisbee football and a cricket match. Along the river are many of the oldest buildings of the city. While waiting to board the river boat we sampled some of the famous Singapore Sling which is a cocktail with something like the following recipe

2 oz gin

3/4 Cherry Heering

2 tsb Benedictine

2 tsb Cointreau

2 oz pineapple juice

3/4 oz fresh lime juice

2 dashes real pomegranate grenadine

1 dash Angostura bitters

Soda water

Singapore Slinger

Riverside Wedding

Mer-Lion

High Rise Garden

Science Museum

From here we walked to China town. Our reward was views of the Sri Mariamman Temple.

I needed a phone charger so I called into an electronics shop where I bought one. The sales man was sharp and proceeded to sell me a polarising filter. Eventually we settled on a price that I could not resist.

 

 

We had lunch in a large, colourful food outlet. We also found a MacDonalds for a cool drink in the afternoon.

 

In the evening we went next door for a Thai meal. The rice was served up in a hollowed out pineapple. The food was delicious, the one man who was waiter and chef was bit slow and one couple got too bored to wait.

In the morning we left for the  airport as soon as we were washed and dresssed. Having checked in had breakfast in Rock City.

There was time to explore the airport where we found a beautiful koi pond next to a large butterfly garden. There was a large variety of very colourful butterflies.

Koi pond with butterfly garden behind

Koi Feeding Time

The plane was delayed for a few minutes while we sat on the tarmac with a tropical storm of lightning, wind a rain preventing  take off. Then the thirteen hour flight began.

I sat next to a young man who was off on business. He had lived in Singapore for nine years and was married to a Singapore born wife and had a child. He explained some of the down sides of living in Singapore. We already knew that there was a death sentence for carrying drugs no matter how small the amount. To this he added the information that immigrants who commit a crime will have 15 days to leave the country with their family. There is no wonder that people are law abiding. However, this does not really explain the high level of politeness that we experienced. He also told us about the very high cost of motoring which involved a costly permit before even buying a car and that cars more than 10 years old must be scrapped. He was pleased with the low cost, very efficient public transport which he used. He told us that the deposit for his two bedroom apartment was twice as much as the full price of an average UK home. 'Council housing' was only available for Singapore born citizens on a low income.


The flight was one of the roughest that we have had. Meal service was so interrupted by turbulence that there was no time to serve the final light meal.


On arrival we were about to encounter the most disappointing moment of the whole trip; namely the UK border. In all our previous trips we collected our cases and walked out. This time we joined a very lengthy queue so simply show our passports. In most countries there is a shorter queue for residents. This time the slow moving queue also had European citizens. I felt sad for an Australian couple who had accidently gotten in the wrong queue. A 'helpful' officer left it until they were at the front of the queue before sending them to the back of a longer one. Returning to the UK should feel better that entering the USA.


Being hungry we found a cafe to have hot chocolate and a chocolate muffin before catching the shuttle to the hotel. We still cannot believe why such a well used, short journey should attract the high level fare charged.


The hotel was one of the best that we have stayed in. The staff were excellent, the room large and bathroom well stocked. It was a little unfortunately that our body was in the UK but we were still mentally in NZ. But, we did get a reasonable nights sleep. Getting up early gave us time to wash, dress and have a leisurely full English breakfast before taking the shuttle back to the central bus station. We bought lunch to eat on the bus and had time to read a bit before catching the coach. The coaches seem to have improved. They are very comfortable and have a monitor which cleverly shows the road ahead but then allows passengers to keep an eye on their cases when the side is open for other passengers to take their belongings out.


Being bank holiday Monday we had to wait a little longer than usual and take a bus with a longer route than usual. Joni was at the stop to meet us and drag a case home. We were back. After a brief time exploring the strange place called home we were grateful to accept Joni's invitation to go to his house and enjoy a tasty lasagne, cooked by him, before returning for the first night in our own bed in four months.


This is the last 'We are Kiwis Again' blog for sometime. I hope to make comments about our experiences on my 'At the Oaks' blog quite soon.