Surprisingly, even with getting up early, we're actually ready when Putu sticks his head round the corner of the door a quarter of an hour early. He's in a more bouyant mood today even though he was back at work yesterday. At the airport we pay him the agreed IDR60,000 for the trip and he's off with a sour look on his face again. I think he was hoping for a tip.
Ngurah Rai airport looked a bit plain on arrival but is actually quite extensive with a lot of shops selling expensive curios but no electronics. How odd. Having carefully managed the budget (read: last minute cash withdrawals) we have IDR11,000 (about US$1) which strangely doesn't buy you much in an airport. We settle for tea and coffee in the cheapest cafe. We're on an Airbus again -- Helen bemoaning still not travelling on a Jumbo -- so old(!) that we have to watch the screen at the far end of the cabin. Boy that first Emirates flight from Heathrow was good.
At Changi we sneak off and buy some camera batteries for Helen before I cause a bit of a stink when the sushi decides that now, not in ten minutes, is the right time to leave. By the time we reach the baggage carousel ours and another three pieces have been neatly stacked at the end, the carousel has stopped, the hall is empty. That means no there's no queue at the hotel reservations desk where they present you with a long list of hotels to choose from. The taxi driver to the Grand Central Hotel was a bit old and like Helen in unfamiliar cars likes to keep the nearside wheels on, if not over, the white lines. The taxi's displaying both the passenger capacity and tyre minimum pressure and size (185 RT...)! He's got the wrong end of the hotel road and so reverses up the one way street before opening his door and scraping the bottom of it on the high kerb. I get out the other side.
We nip downstairs for a coffee and cake in the empty hotel cafe to get the journals up to date and it's a poor showing. The cheesecake is sponge, no hot chocolate for Helen and my coffee tatstes a bit funny. As we headed out for dinner the heavens opened. We legged it across the road and into an Internet cafe to weather the storm. An hour later it was as though the torrential rain hadn't ever fallen. Bone dry roads. We stop for a pizza before wandering on up Orchard Road to see the mix of super department stores and basement electronics shops, the streets packed with people at 10pm.
Grand Central Hotel, Singapore N1.30137
E103.84187 Elev. 35m
Copyright 2003 Ian Fitchet. All rights reserved.