Tuesday, July 18, 2023 – We were up bright and early for breakfast and an 8:30 am driver pickup. Fortunately the drive to Depensar Airport in Bali was only just over an hour (often traffic makes it closer to two hours). This meant we had time to relax and enjoy an airport lounge for a bit.
A slightly delayed 2½ hour flight to Singapore resulted in only a 2 hour layover at the Changi Airport. The downside of this was that we did not have enough time to exit the airport and come back in (through security each way) to explore the Jewel – a dining and shopping “experience” that is a new part of this large airport. But, we did have time to ride the tram through a couple more times to see the huge waterfall fountain in the middle of the Jewel.
Our flight from Singapore to Bangkok was uneventful. We remain HUGE fans of Singapore Airlines. The flight crew was excellent, the baggage allowance generous, and economy seats received full meal and beverage service (even on just short 2 hour flights). Plus we loved the uniforms that the flight crew wore!
We arrived in Bangkok in the evening and easily checked into our hotel (a different one than we stayed in a couple of weeks earlier). As we had been well-fed on the plane we didn’t need dinner, but headed up to check out the rooftop bar for a drink and snack before ending our day.
Wednesday, July 12, 2023 – Our Singapore day started with a visit to the original Ya Kun Kaya Toast for breakfast. This location originally opened in 1944, serving its thinly sliced Kaya toast for almost 80 years. It now has locations throughout Southeast Asia, including some airports. Kaya toast is a very is white bread dipped in a sweet sauce before toasting and is a very traditional Singaporean breakfast.You can order your Kaya toast with butter or peanut butter, and with or without a soft boiled egg. Karen enjoyed her toast with butter and kopi (Singaporean coffee with sweetened condensed milk) while Greg had peanut butter with his toast and an iced Thai tea. There was a line out the door of the restaurant the entire time we were there. It appears that this inexpensive breakfast continues to be quite popular.
From there we walked through Chinatown, stopping by the Thian Hock Keng temple. We observed the beauty of this Chinese temple and threw a couple of coins in the wishing well for good luck.
We were struck by the architecture throughout Singapore both old and new. The older buildings show the British influence with rows of three story buildings with shutters on the windows. And the new modern architecture is really inventive, unique and striking.
Our self guided walking tour took us to Sri Mariamman Temple, the oldest Hindu temple in Singapore built in 1827. In addition to being a strong place of support for Indian immigrants it is well known for its annual fire walking ceremony held each October or November where devotees are asked to walk across hot coals as a sign of their faith.
Our walk then took us to the Buddha Tooth Relic temple where, you guessed it, they have a Buddha Tooth Relic along with a number of other relics and artifacts. There is a beautiful garden on the rooftop along with a prayer wheel that you can walk with in saying your prayers. We were grateful to be able to spend some time looking at exhibits in an air conditioned space.
A trip on the subway took us for a quick visit to Little India. While there we walked through some street markets and made a visit to the colorful house of Tan Teng Niah. Built in 1900, it is the last surviving Chinese villa in Little India. The house was originally built to house a small business making sweets from sugar cane. In back of the building the business also made rubber which is a by-product from processing the sugarcane.
After getting some lunch we headed back to the hotel, gathered our carry-on bags and headed to the airport for the final leg of our flight to Bali. With a little time to explore the Singapore airport we discovered “the Jewel”, a large oval shaped building adjacent to the airport that contains shopping and a large internal garden with an incredible fountain that rains down from a circular opening in the ceiling. We were only able to glimpse the Jewel from a railway connector between terminals that passes through the Jewel. We learned that to go into the Jewel you would need to exit the airport, go through immigration, and then return through security to come back into the airport. The airport only recommends making the visit if you have at least a 5 hour layover. Since we learned about it on our way out of Singapore we will need to wait to explore the Jewel on another trip.
This leg of our trip was our first experience on Singapore Airlines. We were quite impressed. It was quite nice that each flight included wine, beer, soft drinks and a meal, even in economy seats.
With an evening arrival to Bali we could not see much on our way to the beachside resort. One additional bonus for Karen who made all of our travel plans was that our driver held up a sign with her name on it.
Tuesday, July 11, 2023 – Today was a travel day as we made our way to Bali for the second half of our Southeast Asia vacation. As part of our flight plan we scheduled a 20 hour layover in Singapore to give us an opportunity to explore and experience a new city.
With a late afternoon departure we had some time to walk around Chiang Mai one last time to see one of the old city gates, do some shopping, and grab another iced Thai tea.
We arrived in Singapore around 8:00 pm after a three hour flight from Chiang Mai. Fortunately this was only a one hour time change, so no adjustment was necessary. While our luggage remained checked through to Bali, we rushed out of the airport with just our carry-on bags to see the 9:00 pm nightly water and light show in front of the Marina Bay Sands casino. Karen read that the best place to see it is from Level 33, a craft brewery on the 33rd floor of a business building. After the fact we realized that being 33 floors up to see a water and light show that is only 4 stories high requires you to be sitting at the edge of the outdoor seating. So this was a planning fail – we did not see the water and light show but we were able to have a late light dinner while sampling a beer at the “world’s highest urban microbrewery.”
While there we took in the magnificent view of the Singapore night skyline. Then we checked in and dropped off our bags at the nearby Singapore Westin and headed out for a walk to explore the Marina Bay area and see the Singapore Merlion. After a day of walking and traveling we were quite tired, but planned an early morning to get up and explore Singapore before resuming our trip to Bali.
Hammond Adventures 