We had a bit of an epiphany yesterday, and like many epiphanies, it wasn’t a good one.
We had a closer look at the T&Cs of our 2 day MRT pass and discovered that “2 days” doesn’t appear to mean 48 hours, it means that day 1 ends at midnight of the first day that you used the card.
And we first used the cards at about 10.00pm on Sunday night, so day 1 was all of about 2 hours in duration.
And that means that our handy dandy unlimited MRT cards will probably not work when we need to head to the airport today to fly to Thailand.
C’est la vie.
We got up early – although we didn’t set any Olympic records – and we finalised our packing and went exploring Singapore again. Our flight is about 2.00pm, so we needed to be at the airport by 12.00 noon, so we needed to leave the hotel by 10.30am or so.
A search of the Intergoogle tells us that Raffles Hotel is about 500m away, and that there are a couple of good coffee shops and bakeries on the way.
And we do like coffee and pastries.
So off we went. Most of the shops in Singapore seem to open quite late, so it can be challenging to find a coffee shop that is open before 9.30 or 10.00am … which is kinda crazy because if I haven’t had coffee well before 10.00am, I can be rather unpleasant to be around.
But we found one and got our Java hit, then went walking.
We found an unusual shopping centre that was a building inside another building, which was interesting …
… then we found a bakery (French, I think), and their pastries looked amazing.
Only one guy in the line ahead of us, and somehow he managed to choose every single pastry that we wanted to get … and of course there were none of any of those left over for us 🙁
But that’s OK, because we still got something and it was still really good.
Onwards towards Raffles.
Raffles is the quintessential British upper class establishment where you can sip cocktails. It is an absolutely spectacular building that appears to take up a whole city block, and is clearly no place for riff raff Aussies like us.
In fact, while we were able to walk around and take some photos, we didn’t bother trying to get inside because we didn’t want to face the humiliation of being asked to leave.
So that was all we really wanted to achieve today, other than getting to the airport on time and not missing our flight.
Back to our TTHR to collect our stuff …
… and we were back to being subway ninjas.
Unexpectedly, our unlimited 2 day MRT passes still worked, so either:
- They really do work for 48 hours, or
- We completely misread and misunderstood the rules, or
- They assume that if you buy a 2 day pass that you won’t try to use it on day 3.
Who knows?
Changi airport is like a city. I’m sure that there is a movie theatre in there, and possibly a hotel where you can sleep the night. It is a seriously impressive and well run airport.
There are 4 terminals, and the MRT drops you at T2 while we needed to get to T4 … so onto a bus …
Not only is Singapore incredibly clean and tidy, but the people are so polite. A man got off the shuttle bus ahead of me and I inadvertently stepped in front of his wife/significant other as I was trying to get 2 suitcases off the bus.
He turned around and I figured he was about to tell me to get out of the way … but no, he helped me with my luggage!
Anyhow, luggage checked in with the assistance of a very friendly and helpful airport person (take note, Australia!) and we grabbed a bite of lunch and went through customs and immigration.
Singapore to Thailand is only a 2 hour flight, so we went to the gate, topped off our water bottles from the free chilled water taps, and our flight took off on time.
Take note, Australia!
The Jetstar flight was only about half full, so we got to stretch out.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again … Thailand knows how to do hospitality.
The process through the airport was quick and easy. Our stay at the Ramada included a transfer from the airport to the hotel (about 1.5 hours drive north of the airport), and they were waiting for us and ready to go.
The trip was … interesting. Our driver didn’t speak English, and he either didn’t understand speed signs, or the rules don’t apply here.
He sat on 90km/h all the way from Phuket Airport to Khao Lak, regardless of the posted speed limit signs … even through a township that had a 50km/h posted limit.
And he had some kind of code using his indicators to tell everyone that he was passing another vehicle even though we stayed in our own lane. And when he touched the brakes, he also put on his hazard lights.
Interesting.
Anyhow we got to the Ramada at Khao Lak, checked in and were taken to our room with enough time to get down to free flow drinks at the pool bar from 4.00pm to 5.00pm.
Our room is nice, the weather is spectacular, and I can’t think of anything I’d rather than be doing than sitting by the pool.
I could get used to this.
Ciao
#Thailand2024