Trevor & Jonathans Cruise & Trip to the Far East and Australia 2016

Day 32 - Friday June 10th 2016 - Siem Reap to Singapore via Bangkok

Why did we wake up so early? Answers on a postcard please but by just after six in the morning we were both stirring. This meant that it was going t be a long day as it was a travel day to get us to our next destination, Singapore. The one thing that I can say is that it was not the street food, at this point of the day (before breakfast) we had both successfully held onto the contents of our stomachs!

We went for breakfast then straight back to the room to start packing everything away. We had a few hours to do all of this so Jonathan wrote some more blog, trying to catch up on everything whilst Trev drooled over the swimming pool at the hotel we would be staying at in Singapore, The Marina Bay Sands.

The main objective of the day was to stay cool, out of the heat and stay in the room as long as we could until check out time at 1200.

We folded and packed, sorted paperwork and left the room at 1200 to sit in the club lounge for an hour before our taxi arrived to take us on the very short journey back to Siem Reap airport.

Now after our arrival here we did not hold out much hope of there being much to do at the airport so after check in and clearing security we thought we would just be sitting in an empty hanger, how wrong you can be. We walked through a rather lavish duty free shop followed by a local craft store selling silks and carvings and stone statutes. The next thing in front of us was a costa coffee, a Burger King, a Dairy Queen amongst book shops and all the other normal airport fare. We sat at Costa, had a coffee and a muffin and then mooched around before giving in and going to Burger King for just a bun before it was time to board our plane.

This was a two leg trip and out first stop and only an hour’s flight from here was to be Bangkok. We were flying Air Asia (the EasyJet of Asia) but had what they call hot seats so we were in the front row of both legs of this journey to Singapore. No sooner were we airborne than we were fed again, we had forgotten that a year ago when we booked these flights we had also pre booked an inflight meal, Thai green curry that was absolutely yummy, although after the Burger King we were absolutely stuffed and the plane was already on its way down. The other thing I should quickly add here is that of luggage restrictions. Trevor and I really stressed about luggage weights and being the right size bags and all that but honestly we saw some backpackers get on this plane with about three bags in some instances and all bigger that the size you are allowed. Just goes to show how we worry too much in life sometimes.

So it seemed to take longer to taxi to the air bridge than it did to fly to Bangkok. Whilst all our fellow passengers headed for the sizable immigration queues we followed the blue line for international transfers, had to be security screened again and headed for gate 3 for our flight to Singapore.

We had a bit of time to kill being honest and the airport was really noisy and most of the seats in the waiting area were taken but we managed to find somewhere to go all be it in the middle of chaos. We ended up buying a milkshake from Dairy Queen, Trevor went first to buy them but came back empty handed as the two girls running the place seemed more than a little confused with everything and the Chinese were just barging everyone out of the way, that’s exactly how not to act around Trevor! I waded in and after a bit of argy bargy returned with the goods!

So it was time to get on our second plane of the day for a just over two-hour flight to Singapore. After we taxied we seemed to wait for an age to actually get to the runway, it just seemed to be plane after plane coming in. We took off and the first ten minutes of so of being airborne were quite uncomfortable, really bumpy as we were flying through quite thick cloud. It soon levelled out and the air stewardesses came round with more food that we had pre-ordered (a year ago) but this time we declined, especially after that milkshake.

We sailed through immigration at Singapore, being the first off the plane we were at the immigration desks with no one else there (just luck) and cleared and got our bags and jumped in a cab to our hotel, so excited about where we were going even though it was now gone 2330 at night so it had been a long long day!

The Marina Bay Sands hotel is a real WOW building. Sat out on the outer wall of Singapore facing the city and the sea its 58 floors and towers absolutely dominate the sky line. Imagine three towers with a large tanker laying across the top of all three and your close. It just so happens though that the tanker is actually an infinity pool with views over the Singapore skyline. We had seen it being built the first time we had ben to Singapore so this was a really exciting moment for us, and it had cost a small fortune!

The problem is that when you build something up with that much expectation the hotel really only has one place to go and that is down in your estimations, unfortunately that’s exactly what it did, such a shame.

So we got to the check in desk and it took ages, really ages for them to even find us a room in the class that we had booked, we got little explanation just lots of tapping on a computers keyboard, a phone being clasped by a chin and a woman doing everything she could to avoid eye contact with us.

Eventually after almost twenty minutes a room had been found, we were told it was a free upgrade of room (I’m not so sure) but to be honest it just spoilt the moment…. that thing called expectation you see, it’s dangerous.

So our room was on the 47th floor with views out across the Singapore hanging gardens and the harbour lined with tanker after tanker. As it was late we literally waited for our bags to arrive and headed straight up to the roof to drink in the views, see this oh so talked about pool and just chill.

We headed up to the 58th floor (you have to change elevators) and into Spago (the name of the bar). It was loud and full of very thin young waitresses all wearing black pencil dresses with perfect hair and teeth. The place was rammed with designer gowns and shoes and shirts and bags, a place to be seen and to see other people this most definatly is.

We were shown to a table, the noise was tangible, deep house music and chill out played and it was hard to hear each other speak but we put that down to age. The drinks menu they gave us was only for speciality drinks or bottles (when was the last time you went into a bar and bought a bottle??) so when we asked for the normal drinks menu eyebrows were raised but we got it….see this is not going well.

We settled on our old friend G&T and simply asked if they had slimline tonic, honestly you would have thought that we were asking for proof of life on Mars, the waitress just raised her eyebrows dissaprovingly and went off in a huff leaving us unclear wjat was going on. Eventually she cam back, no, they don’t have slimleine so we said any tonic and the drinks still came over 10 minuites later with no ice, no lemon for our sparkling water, just no care whats so ever……and this is a fivw star hotel that was meant to be a special treat for us. They shattered that illusion in under forty minuites of arriving.

Now you have to bare in mind that the hotel is stunning, a real work of art but the service we received in that short amount of time was not even three star friendly……such a shame.

We (well I should say I) ended up saying something to one of the other waitresses and explained our dissapointmet and she ended up giving us our drinks free (and that was about £30 worth of drinks). It was nice of her, personally I would rather have paid but been blown away by my experience.

We retired to bed and I fell asleep almost immediately, little did I know at this point of the next day that Trevors stomach was telling him that it was not happy anymore and would keep him up long into the morning. It’s a Singapore curse, it happened the last time we were here as well.

Heres to new beginnings tomorrow……