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Published: April 14th 2012
Changi Airport 1
All airports should have them!NEWCASTLE TO SINGAPORE. Well, we got to Newcastle Airport early, thinking we might as well sit around the airport rather than at home.Concluded waiting is boring no matter where it is.
I don’t think I am superstitious, but to start our journey exactly 100 years to the day that the Titanic left on her maiden voyage made me think of the perils of travelling – DVT, snakes, spiders, muggers etc. Are we mad?
First Snafu: The plane was late from Newcastle into Heathrow, causing us to rush to our connecting flight to Singapore with only 15 minutes to spare. Twelve hours 50 minutes of nonstop flying found us landing in Singapore Airport – very tired and Jet Lagged.
What a difference - Singapore Airport provides travellers with excellent facilities – Internet – free, in 15 minute slots, free drinking water fountains, carpeted terminals, free TV lounge, free reclining “sunbed type” loungers for tired travellers, a swimming pool, etc etc. Contrast that with Heathrow which is overcrowded, feels austere in places, no-where near as comfortable and the greedy operator looks to see what more it can get out of passengers with overpriced bottled
Changi Airport 2
For the tired traveller water, pay per use internet, etc. Heathrow could learn a useful lesson from Singapore. Waiting 6+ hours in Singapore Airport for our flight to Perth is not too bad - after exploring the airport, seeing its cactus garden, etc, we sat in proper comfortable arm chairs to relax and read waiting for our Perth Flight.
AND ON TO PERTH AIRPORT- The TV reports showing the horrendous time travellers have with customs and immigration on entering Australia had me sweating in case I was caught carrying a stow away insect or something else they could get me for. Nothing to worry about –all of those people I met were polite, friendly and helpful, which put me in good fettle. Well done Perth. Just as well as I was in a good mood as I needed it for our next “Titanic moment”. We went to collect our two checked bags and found of course, they were not there. Apparently still on their way from Heathrow, they said. Agh!!
Using the free shuttle from the international terminal to the domestic terminal, we then picked up the service 37 public transport bus down to the centre
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Care indeed at Changi of Perth. A bargain at less than $4 each. The driver, I am sure, was an ex rally driver the way she threw the bus around roundabouts. There was a silver lining in not having our large bags with us as we were able to spend a couple of hours walking around Perth. It is a beautiful clean modern city that has retained some of her older buildings to great effect. The city seems to come alive early, with shops and offices opening at 8.00. The locals seemed to ignore the 5 or 6 intimidating loudmouthed Native Australians behaving like drunks in a main street, whilst we chose to get away from them as soon as we could - an interesting introduction to Australia.
AND ON TO BUNBURY. We boarded the Astralind Train to from Perth Train Station to take us to Bunbury. This is a very comfortable train, with reclining seats and a small reasonably priced buffet car. I was impressed with the care of the conductress on the train, as she offered without prompting, to relocate two passengers in seats with poor legroom to more comfortable seats. I don’t think we
would get such consideration in the UK. Impressed. We were picked up by Valda’s parents and taken to their home to recover from our 39 hours “on the road”.
We were woken up today to the sound of bird calls that I have never heard of before – a sure reminder that we are in a different land with new things to explore.
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Malcolm Bowie
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Blighty
Your trip so far adds further weight to my slowly evolving theory that I've been lied to all my life. Since I was a kid at school I've been told how the UK is the greatest place in the world - we've fallen so far behind (if we ever were infront !); we now live in a sh*thole!