My flight arrived in Singapore's Changi Airport at just after 5 in the morning. My flight to Chennai (Madras) left at 9 that evening. I had almost booked the minimum 6 hour stay in the transit hotel but decided that the few hours sleep I had caught on the plane would hold me over. It was a successful plan. I was thinking of picking up my bag and exiting for my transit lounge at the budget terminal. The women at the information desk told me to just leave my bag and stay in the Terminal One transit lounge. I could collect my bag later from lost and found. Boy, was that a good idea!
For those of you who have not been in Changi Airport, it is the best airport that I have passed through. The transit area in Terminal One is two levels. The lower level is the 'transit mall'. However, in addition to the large duty fr
ee shops, the obligatory bar and a couple light eating places. there are other things for the comfort of the traveller.If you want to watch TV, there are six large screens in one area each tuned to a different channel with comfortable easy chairs containing speakers in the arms.
A massage? There is a parlour with a large variety of choices.
There are two clusters of a dozen computers on stands that are free to use for broadband access to the internet. You have to stand to use them and they have fifteen minute sessions. There is also free wireless broadband access if you have your own laptop with you as I did.
However, my favourite place on that level is a corridor with plants and fountains and a row of ten chaise lounges for anyone to use. Notice my cart saving my space while I took this photo.
I do not understand why the airport was so quiet that day. There were very few people in transit and I managed three sessions on the chaise lounges. My first one, I settled into a very deep relaxation. Just on the border of sleep. Very refreshing.
The second level of the transit area contained a row of restaurants, the transit hotel, a pay by the hour transit lounge and a free cinema showing movies that I have never heard of. I did watch one. It was a grade B comedy called Balls of Fire. A kind of ping pong as kung-fu plot. It had Christopher Walken as a drag queen gang boss. I later walked in during a Bruce Willis film and turned around after two minutes. Besides a very predictable plot and gratuitous violence the acting was sooo bad.
The pay by the hour transit lounge offered $8.00 showers which were a welcome event in the middle of the day.
One special area for me was a section
that will I suspect one day be covered with stalls but is now open space. I played several times with my tai chi forms and also the bagua unicorn form during the day. Here is a photo of the space. The pattern of the carpet. is much more disconcerting in the photo.Notice my trolley in the edge of the photo. She was a cute little trolley. We went everywhere together.
I called her 'Olive'. She seemed OK with that. What she really liked was when she got to wear my hat.
Here she is watching the carp in the pond in the lounge.
Eventually, the time came for me to make my way to the budget terminal to catch my flight. I had to leave Olive at the top of the escalator. When I reached the lower floor, I wistfully looked back. She was gone... I turned and moved on.
Picking up my checked bag from lost and found only took about ten minutes though I had been warned to leave up to 45 minutes for that. I then had to walk to the other end of terminal one where I caught the "Sky Train" monorail to terminal two. I took the elevator to the basement where I caught a bus to the "Budget Terminal".
The Budget Terminal really lived up to its name. It looked like a converted maintenance hanger from the
nineteen fifties. I think they bought the paint from a discount outlet. You know, those cans that they mixed incorrectly. The eating area looked like a cheap cafeteria. I had to wait an hour for my check in to start. I played backgammon on my macbook. When I got to the check in, I discovered that my duffel was two and a half kilos over weight. Tiger airways only has a fifteen kilo weight allowance. When you buy online, you can pay for extra weight. They tell you that if you pay at the airport it will be more expensive. This was a flight going to India. The clerk didn't even blink an eye at two and a half kilos.Next step was to enter the waiting lounge. The guard directed me, without my trolley, towards a strange booth. As I turned the corner into the booth, I saw one of those devices to check the size of your carry on. Beside that a scale! Then I glanced up to see this woman on a stool being very bored. She was waving me through. I obliged as quickly as possible.
Financial Advice
When buying booze for your "Indian friend" remember that to them Johnny Walker is Johnny Walker. I bought the more expensive Black Label thinking that I would uhm come out ahead. When I went to er... transfer it, I discovered that my "Indian Friend" did not think of is as precious as I knew it was. I don't usually drink whiskey but I may have to start on this trip.
I also bought a bottle of Bombay Saphire to have as a G&T in the hot weather that I was headed towards.
I was happily waiting in the Budget boarding lounge of the Budget Terminal for budget flight when the call came through and we all filed along a winding line (pretending that our carry-ons weighed nothing) to another holding pattern. I noticed that I was only one of three caucasians on the plane. Then it was an orderly walk across the tarmac to the stairs up to the plane. We all got seated and were in the air on our way. It was an easy flight. We landed in Chennai airport and we were in India!
Read this first.
I Love India.
As usual, when the plane began to slow most of the people on the plane were standing and retrieving luggage. I waited, knowing that we would have to wait once we came to a full stop. It's always the same. I then stood in my aisle seat and retrieved my carry on and computer.
The doors finally opened and people moved forward. Now, usually, when this happens, there is an understanding that if you are ready to go, then, the people behind you will hesitate slightly and you can slip in the flow. Not this time. People move full steam ahead. I had to pry my way into the line. We were back in India!
Down the stairs, into a bus that drove us twenty metres and then up a long ramp that suddenly changed to carpet beginning with an edge that looked like an elephant had been chewing on it. When we hit hard floor again, the missing floor tiles had been replaced with rough cement. The walls had a pattern of large rectangular tiles floating in a pattern. You could see from quite a distance that the painters of the wall behind the tiles had splashed onto the tiles and wiped off the wrongly place paint with rags.. almost. We were walking down a corridor that was totally empty. As we approached a woman in airport authority uniform, she indicated that we should pass on her left side. We dutyfully obliged. Why have authority if you don't use it. It would be a total waste.
Yes, I was in India!
My driver was waiting for me with a sign that read "Mr Ebnam". I recognised the name of the hotel. It was nice to tell the rickshaw drivers that I had a driver with me. They lost interest very quickly. Crossing to the parking lot, I was lead along the zebra crossing when we could. I mean, they are open game as parking spaces, aren't they? Once packed into the car, my driver manuevered with some skill through the cars that were making up their own rules in the parking lot. Out on the street and under an incomplete elevated freeway and we were on a main road.
I had a very good driver. He kept the line in the middle of the car all of the time. I was glad that it was mid-night and not so crowded. I discovered an interesting way that the Indians have of calming traffic. You place a metal barricade across one lane of traffic and then a couple car lengths later you put one across the other lane of traffic. In Chennai, this was done on the main roads where you had two or three lanes going each way. Another thing that I noticed on the ride from the airport is the thriftiness of Indian drivers. Why only have two lanes of traffic just because there are lines on the road indicating such? If you can fit four vehicles (a bus, a car, a rickshaw and a motorcycle) across the road than it is much more economical. You are getting full use of the road that way!
My driver was very proud of his horn. He played it all the time. I was to learn further mysteries of the Indian highways in the next few days.
We arrived at my hotel by some untraceable route. I chequed in and was taken to my room. You probably know about the ways that interior designers make a space look larger than it really is; mirrors and such. Whoever had done my hotel room had discovered how to make a space look smaller and less pleasing to the eye than it really is. I guess it's an art. I tipped the bellboy, took a bucket shower and went to bed.
