Are we going to make it?

Days 31 to 32 - Cebu to Singapore to Melbourne

Day 31

Last day in the Philippines! Our room had a nice view of the ocean and as we were getting ready we witnessed a waterspout, something neither of us had seen before.  

Our flight was leaving at 1:00pm and we were only 9km from the airport so we decided we had plenty of time for breakfast before heading to the airport. We had checked out by about 9:45am  and tried to book a ride to the airport using Grab, but for some reason there were no drivers in the area. We kept trying as we hadn't booked a hotel taxi, and while we were waiting there was a massive clap of thunder followed by very heavy rain. Fortunately a driver accepted our request and pulled up a few minutes later, dropping off a couple of passengers. 

Our driver told us the roads were flooded so the trip would take a while, and he wasn't wrong! Our 9km trip took us 86 minutes, as we had left early we were confident we would get to the airport on time though at times we did get a little worried.

We safely made it onto our flight, arriving in Singapore just before 5pm. We checked in to the airport hotel then visited the the Jewel light show, followed by dinner in the shopping plaza next door.

Day 32

Changi Airport is pretty easy to get through and our flight was at 10:50am. We woke early, checked out then hung out at one of the airport lounges for a while before our flight, eventually arriving in Melbourne around 10pm. Trip over ... time to start thinking about the next one.

Love is in the air (kind of)

Day 2 Singapore to Penang (Malaysia)

Everything in Singapore seems to run like clockwork and we had no trouble getting the shuttle bus to Terminal 4. As it wasn't close to the other terminals we were expecting it to be of a lower standard but thankfully it was contemporary and efficient.

We arrived at Penang airport about 1pm and the difference to Singapore was noticeable, it had the old airport feel about it. We grabbed a Grab to get to our hotel in George Town.

As it was Sunday we went to visit the Hin Artisan market, which disappointingly was more craft and twee than actual art. After a quick look around we went back to the hotel to wait until the heat had dropped before venturing out again. 

About 6pm we walked to Armenian Street and wandered around the souvenir shops whilst enjoying the street art. We found the umbrella Street which was pretty with all the fairy lights decorating the umbrella's edges. 

M found a restaurant highly recommended for its rendang curry and and after dinner we walked back to our hotel stopping for a drink on Love Lane along the way.

... and they're off again ...

Day 1 - Melbourne to Singapore

A 1pm flight meant a leisurely start to the day before our flight to Singapore, our first step on the way to Penang. 

After landing in Singapore we quickly made it through customs (no queues, it was all automated), collected our luggage then made our way through the airport to the Crowne Plaza near terminal 3, a very nice and convenient place for an overnight stopover.

When are they going to ban children on planes that we are flying on?

Singapore to Istanbul, Turkey

An 11 hour flight to Istanbul which was long and tedious, but as it was a day flight Netflix and reading helped pass the time. Our seats had been changed by the airline a couple of days earlier but K managed to convince the check in staff to move us back to our original seats. This was a good move, otherwise we would have been seated in the middle of a family with a couple of whiny kids - disaster averted!

Istanbul's new airport is about an hour's drive away from the city so we chose a yellow taxi from out the front. As the driver hurtled along the freeway at 140kmh overtaking every other car we realised the back seat belts had been disabled. 

We had chosen a hotel in the same tourist area we stayed at back in May 2011, a much nicer room this time though, as it was on the top floor of a small hotel with a panoramic of view over the Bosphorus where we could watch ships arriving and departing. 

Next trip begins ...

Melbourne to Singapore

An easy lunchtime flight to Singapore with an overnight stay at a hotel just one train stop from the airport. 

This worked out to be a good stopover choice. The hotel was easy to get to, the room was good, and there was a shopping complex next door with lots of dining options.

Day 1 - Off!

A fairly civilised flight time this morning, leaving at 9.30am for Singapore. A pretty cruisy flight, not much of interest to report, though the man sitting next to K was a little strange, doing little more than just staring straight ahead for the eight hour flight, he did not watch any entertainment, use his phone, read a book or go to sleep ... he just stared straight ahead. He came to life for two things though, the first was food, the other was each time M opened the window shutter he craned as far as he could to see out the window .... a bit of stretch considering he was seated next to the isle.

On arrival into Singapore M was taken aside at Immigration and subjected to to some serious interrogation ... slight exaggeration he was taken off to another desk because the system was taking too long. Little did we know that this was the start of a number of hiccups on the trip.

We waited at the carousel for our luggage, then waited some more. We did have slight concerns as at the self check-in section at Melbourne our luggage tags said Frankfurt, which we mentioned to the staff member who didn't seem to take much notice. We gathered that by now our cases were on their way to Germany. We checked with lost luggage, who told us that they would find them and send them to our hotel, so from the airport we caught the MRT into the city, travelling very lightly indeed.

After checking into our hotel in the Arab part of town followed by some clothes shopping for M we stopped for a bite to eat before heading to bed. Around 11pm we were woken by our luggage arriving - phew!

Day 88 to Day 91 - Sofia, Bulgaria to Singapore to Melbourne

An early start to get the shuttle to Sofia Airport where we boarded our Ryanair flight to Athens.

Once in Athens we changed to our Scoot flight to Singapore. We finally landing in Singapore at around 4:30am the following day (local time).

We had a few hours sleep, then caught the MRT into town, where we did a bit of shopping, M got a haircut at a place where you took a number and paid via a machine, and we finally ended up having dinner at Boat Quay,

The flight to Melbourne the next day left at the very reasonable time of 11am, so it was a pretty cruisy flight!

THE END

Day 4 - Singapore to Athens

We arrived into Athens just after 9am, K was craning her neck from the plane window to hopefully get a glimpse of the Parthenon but all she could see was a giant Ikea. 

Our taxi swerved in and out of traffic at 130 kms an hour, we think because it is a set fare he wanted to get us there as quick as possible, we were fortunate that our Airbnb in Plaka allowed us to check in early.

As K has an interest in Greek architecture, especially in columns she had made a list of all the sites she wanted to see. What we didn’t expect was that they would all be so close to where we are staying and every corner we turned brought us to another incredible ancient site. We visited Hadrian's library and the Ancient Agora purely by stumbling upon them. 

It’s quite like being in Cairo and discovering the pyramids are in the city not out somewhere in the distance as you have imagined, or walking through the middle of Vienna and seeing a Lipizzaner crossing the road in front of you as the stables are in the centre of the city. 

The weather was superb, we were pleased to leave the humidity of Singapore behind and instead of having temperatures in the low 20's that we expected they were in the high 20’s.

We always like to start our visit in a new city with a “free” walking tour as you get a good overview of the city and usually some history, local information and useful recommendations as well. We joined the 5pm tour and had a great guide who entertained us and filled in a lot of history and background over three hours. It took 9 years to build the Parthenon and the current restoration complete with scaffolding has been going on for 34 years, the only time the scaffolding has been taken down was for the 2000 Olympics. 

We went to have dinner at a place our guide recommended which we finally found after getting hopelessly lost, compounded by a touch of jet lag and a night trying to sleep on a plane. We shuffled home having seen a lot more than we had planned for our first day in Athens.

Day 3 - Singapore

M’s birthday today and we caught the train to Harbourfront, it's pretty impressive how clean, easy and efficient the train system is, not a homeless person in sight, is that just because of the areas we are visiting? 

Once we arrived we caught the cable car to Sentosa Island, we bypassed the theme parks and visited the fort instead. The fort was interesting but the heat and humidity was a real killer. We made full use of our cable car ticket, visiting every stop on the two lines including Mount Faber.

We then did a quick stop at Orchard Road for a little shopping. In the evening we went to Marina Bay Sands to take the lift 57 floors to the Skypark, the area where non guests are allowed (for a fee) to check out the view of Singapore. We had timed it for dusk to watch the Gardens by the Bay light show but in hindsight it was a little too 
far away and a bit underwhelming.

We then caught the train to Arab St, obviously the Arabian section of Singapore which was very Turkish in character but we still managed to find an Indian restaurant before heading back to our apartment to pack up and head for the airport for our 2.30am flight to Athens. That's the problems with these cheap flights, there's a reason why they're cheap!

Singapore is a little different to most other airports as in the hand luggage security check is at the gate not in the main airport section. The problem with this is that the area is only opened up an hour before the flight leaves so there is a huge queue and you have to enter the lounge without any water. Once you get through the baggage check the line for the one water fountain is even longer as everyone knows they are getting on a flight where you have to pay an exorbitant price for a bottle of water. They started making final call announcements and many gave up and left the queue to board, we managed to get a little water but many others missed out.

We were lucky to have a spare seat between us which made the 11 hour 20 minute flight in the middle of the night a little more comfortable.

Day 2 - Singapore

We were still operating on Australian time which is 2 hours ahead so we were up and out the door early for our first stop, Gardens by the Bay, which is relatively new, very lush and attractive.

We went into the flower dome which had plants from around the world and the first garden was easy for us to identify as it was Australian. The specialist garden on display was tulips, beautifully done with sculptures and mock Dutch shops, the variation in the colours was extraordinary.

Next stop was the cloud forest which had the most superb vertical gardens and cascading water however part way through we did wonder why we were visiting a man-made cloud forest when we have been to natural ones in places like Costa Rica and Rwanda.

We  left Gardens by the Bay and crossed the river walking past the sporting stadium on the water until we got to the Merlion statue which was engulfed with tourists. From there we walked to Chinatown and caught the train to Little India. The heat and humidity was pretty draining and K decided she needed a break so we headed back to our apartment to recuperate  before heading out for the evening.

We caught the train to Boat Quay and found a nice roof top bar on the river with a fabulous view of the impressive Marina Sands building before finding a good Indian restaurant with a table right on the edge of the water, which after 16km of walking for the day we felt we deserved. We need to eat up on spicy Asian food as we are sure it will be thin on the ground in Eastern Europe.

Day 1 - Melbourne to Singapore

Our flight was leaving at the very civilised time of 12.10pm so we caught a taxi to the airport and on the way tried to check to see whether it was on time. We had a bit of trouble finding the Scoot flight and that's when we discovered that while we might think we were flying Scoot they had actually merged with Tiger. The flight was fine, though Kathryn did get into a bit of a fight with the guys in front of us who decided to put their seats back about 3 milliseconds after the seat belt sign went off. 

Once we arrived at our little Airbnb apartment we walked down the street for dinner at a cheap corner restaurant and called it a night.