A quick 12 hours, packed with lots of adventures! Getting from Papua New Guinea to Indonesia via two flights through Singapore. For now, it was our short visit to this unique city state.
Day 51–52, Saturday–Sunday, October 26–27: Singapore
From Port Moresby the Air Niugini’s flight took off in the afternoon at 3:15, and we arrived in Singapore, at the Changi Airport, almost 6 hours later. But it was only around 7 there because of the 2-hour time difference between the two countries.
We wanted to get to our hotel as quickly as we could knowing that the next morning we had to get up at 4:15 am. But it took us almost an hour and half to finally be in our room even though – it turned out – our hotel, the Crowne Plaza, was literally at the airport.
At arrival, in the immigration hall, as we presented our passports to the automatic machines, we got a message that we had to submit the foreign visitor’s Singapore arrival card, which had to be filled out electronically, but only a few computers were available in the hall. Answering the many questions on the form took us some time. Then we had to pick up our suitcases because for the Air Niugini flight they had to be checked in.
The airport was huge and looked fancy – they say this is the best airport in the world! – but at times we felt frustrated of how to get from point A to point B. After walking a bit in circles, we wanted to find an information place to learn which train to take to the hotel, but to get information you had to turn to a virtual assistant/ambassador.
As we were finally walking toward the correct skytrain (out of the many), I tried to get a few photos of our surroundings.
In the hotel, we got upgraded to a very nice room where according to the welcome greeting on the tv screen we could “sit back, relax and enjoy.” Yes, that’s how we felt but we had time only for sleep – and not that much!
In the early morning, we thought it was going to be easy to get to the terminal from which our plane was leaving. But when we left the hotel at 4:30 am, it wasn’t clear at all where we had to go. So, we went back to the reception to ask. We had to take the skytrain to terminal 2, then from there a shuttle bus to terminal 4; all of this in around 40–45 minutes. But with a little luck, we might be able to be on time for the 7:20 am take off, we were told. (For the international flight, we had to be at the check in two hours prior to departure time.)
We made it in about 20 minutes! So, fortunately, we were not given the correct estimate. We even had time to enjoy the various artwork around the Changi Airport.
Fifteen minutes before 8 am, we took off on a Jetstar airplane, knowing that in two and half hours we would be in Indonesia.
And as for Singapore…who knows, one day we might spend some time here, not just in its very nice airport!
