Singapore to Bali or how to lose £350 on an Air Asia flight

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Many things about these two days were great but they are also two days where quite a few things went wrong.

6 December 2010

Today is our last full day in Singapore as tomorrow afternoon we fly to Bali. The plan was to visit the Botanic Gardens and the Orchid Gardens and to visit the harbour. If we had time, we might pop over to Sentosa island as there is a flowrider (surf) machine that Gregg would have rather liked to have a look at.

We didn’t set an alarm, deciding that we deserve to let our bodies and the sun, rather than electronics, tell us when it was time to rise. Our room has a very narrow window that runs almost from floor to ceiling and, in the absence of a curtain, we were gently awoken as light started to stream in.

For the first time since 27th August we prepared breakfast for ourselves - toast with peanut butter and a cup of lipton tea (no milk) and sat at the ‘kitchen’ table cogitating over our plans for the day and current news stories in the UK thanks to the new iPad. Having showered and established how we were to get to the Botanic Gardens, we set out into the sweltering heat for another day of exploration.

As we were on our way out of the door, Gregg asked me to take something from him and somehow I managed to combine acceding to his request with dropping my camera. When I turned it on it sounded a bit crunchy and the LCD screen made everything look rather washed out. There wasn’t much that we could do about it but we hoped that it was just the screen that was damaged and not the internal workings of the camera itself. So, today, Gregg and I are going to take roughly the same shots (we usually try to avoid that) so that if my camera is dead we still have plenty of photographs.

Since the Botanic Gardens are not particularly close to an MTR line, we got ourselves to the closest one (Orchard Road) and then hopped on a bus which took us to 50 metres from the gardens. A word, or two, here about public transport in Singapore. It is clean, organised and gets you there when it says it will. It also has a very sensible pricing structure. There are no ‘zones’ nor is there anything random about the way that you are charged - it is all done on the basis of the distance that you travel, no matter where your journey starts. So, any bus journey of up to 3km costs SGD$1 (metro is a bit more). The added benefit for visitors is that the pricing bracket that your journey falls into gives you a rough idea of how long to expect the journey to take. The bus that we caught also had a stack of maps showing the route that the bus was to take with each of the bus stops named. The only problem that we could find was that the drivers do not give change (in fact they don’t even touch the money it just goes into slot in front of him and then he presses a button to print your ticket(s)) which was ok on the way there but necessitated a trip into a hospital to buy something in their shop on the way back.

As one might expect of Singapore, the Botanic Gardens are beautifully kept and a perfect oasis of calm. Even the gates are monumentally impressive (see pic below). I got rather carried away with the camera but, since I forgot to pick up our mini ‘gorilla pod’ many of the photos are a tad blurry. We wandered through the gardens, stopping on the odd bench until we reached the orchid gardens. This is the only part of the gardens for which an entrance fee is levied and it is easy to see why. There are thousands of orchids that need tending to and, in the short time that we were there, we must have seen upwards of 15 gardeners tending to their charges.

Dad has grown orchids for almost as long as I can remember so I know a little bit about them and was hoping to find at least one slipper orchid to photograph for him (these being the type that he mainly has). We were reaching the end of our visit when we came upon the cool greenhouse and I was hopeful (for reasons I can’t quite fathom - except that it is ‘cool’ in the UK and they survive there) that this might be the place to find one. This greenhouse was pretty small and it must be the wrong time of year for cool orchids because there were very few in bloom. I very nearly missed it but, as I turned around to say something to Gregg, I noticed two blooms of that unmistakable slipper shape, spent some time snapping it and announced that I was now happy, having achieved what I set out to do.

After exiting the Orchid gardens, we meandered back through the park and headed for the bus stop. First problem was that the buses do not seem to follow the same route in the opposite direction from the mornings’ journey - perhaps there is a one way system or something so we had to work out approximately which stop we thought might take us to where we wanted to go. Second problem was the aforementioned lack of the correct change. Fortunately, the bus stop was in front of the Gleneagle Hospital so Gregg went in and found the hospital shop in order to obtain some change.

The bus took us back to the Orchard Road shopping district. As the bus drew away, I noticed that the mall across the road had a large Borders book shop on the ground floor, so we headed for that to enjoy some aircon and to browse through books written in English. Books are very expensive here (around £15 for a paper back) so we weren’t going to be buying but we enjoyed seeking out books that we might look for elsewhere.

From Borders, we found ourselves back in the never ending warren of shopping malls which surround Orchard Road station and toyed with the idea of going to see a film (we abandoned the trip to the harbour since we couldn’t find any information about it suggesting that there were things to do there) but there were only films on at that time which didn’t appeal to either of us. So, we decided to return to the hostel and perhaps go out later in the evening.

Once back at the hostel, we discovered that the films we would have liked to have seen weren’t on until late in the evening so we shelved that idea too. Instead, we spent a pleasant evening blogging, iPading and playing games.

7 December 2010

We over slept slightly but, since our flight out of Changi airport was not until 4:30pm, we weren’t in a huge rush to get going. The journey to Changi was all on the MRT. The only downside was that it involved four changes of train and it is not a short hop between lines in Singapore.

The next couple of hours consisted of obtaining passwords to use the free wifi at the airport (that I couldn’t get to work on the iPad for a good few hours), applying for a tourist tax refund, lunching and checking in. There is not much to do before check in at Terminal 1 and we were both pleased to get rid of our bags and proceed through immigration and into departures. There, we found sun lounger style reclined seats, various shops for browsing and, eventually, an iPad connection to the wifi.

We were flying Air Asia and, so the captain informed us, on a brand new aircraft - it certainly felt it. I spent the first part of the flight playing solitaire games on the iPad and then settled in to reading. It wasn’t until we were standing in the queue for immigration that I suddenly remembered, to my horror, that the I had left the iPad behind on the plane. I found an Air Asia representative who radioed to the cabin crew to check for it at my seat (it was in the back of the seat in front of me and I hadn’t noticed it because the black leather case it was in matched the leather of the seats) and told me to go to the Air Asia desk on the other side of immigration.

Unfortunately, some opportunist had got there before the cabin crew and there was no iPad to be found. I know that it is only an object and no human being has been harmed, but I only had it for 48 hours and I am still so angry with myself - I even remember reminding myself not to forget it when I put it in the back of the seat.

There followed a massive delay as we tried to establish how to report the loss/theft and eventually we got an Air Asia representative to compile an ‘irregularity report’ for us (we have insurance so we are going to try to claim but I don’t hold out much hope) and then grimly proceeded through customs who asked if we had been held up in immigration. We confirmed that we hadn’t and explained the problem, they helpfully advised us where to find airport police to make a report to as well.

The airport police station is in the middle of a darkened car park but we did eventually find it and file a report. It was all a rather odd experience as it was quite clear that the police didn’t really give a monkeys - I suppose I don’t really blame them but my materialistic heart was breaking so it would have been nice to get a little sympathy! As we were getting up to leave, report in hand, someone mentioned insurance and then they started saying that we needed to ‘bay’. What we think they were saying was that if we had made the report for insurance purposes then we would have to pay an administration fee. We both did a good job of not understanding and Gregg said that he could use the report that he had in his bag for insurance purposes and we didn’t need to pay for another one, at which point they seemed to give up asking and began looking glum which we took as our cue to leave.

It was now well gone 9pm and I was thoroughly fed up but Gregg was doing an extremely good job of not getting angry. It is at times like these, when he keeps me grounded, that he is the best caretaker in the world.

We got in a taxi and headed for Kuta, giving the name of the hostel that Kev and Paul stayed in last time we were in Bali as we couldn’t remember the name of the place that we stayed. Oh and it was raining! Gregg guided the driver to the place that we actually wanted to try first - New Arena Hotel. It was still there, was open and had rooms. There have been some extension works since the last time that we were here but it is, otherwise, pretty much as we remember it.

We were starving and set out to find somewhere to eat. Somehow later, we ended up in Bounty which is a club where the boys sang Hey Jude karaoke last time we were here. It was full of much younger travellers than us which, rather than making us feel old, made us feel younger than we are and kind of put us back in the place that we were 2 ½ years ago for half an hour or so - a place where the bad stuff hadn’t happened yet (even the loss of the iPad!) and it felt good.

Then, as we were walking home, I managed to kick the rim of a manhole cover and nearly sliced the end of my toe off. Gregg to the rescue again - this time with the medical kit (iodine Savlon spray is a wonderful thing!) and then we both fell asleep, hoping that today’s bad luck doesn’t follow us into tomorrow.

p.s. the camera, as you will see, is not a pretty picture but still working so at least I haven’t ‘lost’ us two bits of electronic equipment in one 36 hour period.

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