Our latest trip was fascinating! The ratshit thing about it, slightly was we had to return to New Zealand, which I really shouldn’t complain about in comparison to other countries that are struggling with so many problems. However, my slight depressed state at the time is the result of an out of this world experience with my partner. For those travellers thinking about heading up into Vietnam and Cambodia via Singapore, we recommend it! Shit, I am so glad that we were none the wiser to visas in order to gain entry into Cambodia and Vietnam. At first it seemed so heavy to comprehend, that the very moment we were flying out of Tahiti heading to Singapore with the expectation of a one night stop over then head off into Vietnam was quickly flattened, when moments from boarding our flight to Singapore, we were informed that we needed visas to gain entry into the proposed countries that we had our sights set on ! Cambodia was our goal, we were set on walking Angkor Wat etc as you do – but I’ll write about that later on. So, shit happens – as we were boarding we were stressing out – we had to find a place to fast track visas ( no one told us that you could fill out visas at the Cambodian airport also ! – go figure). Extend our accomodation in Singapore and flip our flights around to make sure we weren’t going to lose toooooooo much money! Lucky for me, my partners a wizard and excels under pressure. Mid flight from Papeete to Singapore and thanks to technology, we were searching all the on line Visa sites to get us quick entry into Vietnam. By the time our 9 hour flight from Papeete to Singapore had finished we had successfully, been scammed by bullshit web-sites, thrown our flights into the rubbish bin and had all our fingers and toes crossed that the sites we did look at, were hopefully legit! Each promising at least a three day turn around. Which meant, we had to prolong our stay in Singapore and change up our plans!

This worked out well and man we had an amazing time. But first as mentioned, I’m unpacking the suitcase, and working backwards on this trip. If you want to fly up to Asia and it requires a stop over in Singapore, we recommend you take it. The Singapore airport is a beast ! Before we departed from Cambodia (Phnom Penh), we had already decided that we were going to find a place to shower and change clothes at Singapore airport. We packed our little carry on bags, with clean clothing in preparation for a well deserved refreshing shower. That was on the top five of the important, “to do” list we had discussed. 1. Store bags. 2. Find showers. 3. Where to put our legs up.4. Head into town to finish off last tour of Singapore. 5. Eat. By the time we got our bearings around the Airport, the thought of leaving the airport was scrubbed altogether. Singapore airport is a destination in itself. It puts our township of Rotorua to shames. Yes, the airport is huge, it requires a Sky Train ( I know check that word out !), to move around the site or if you’re keen on walking, go hard! But again, the place is amazing, we decided that once we had checked our bags in to storage, we would hang around the place, we had four hours to kill. The other option was to catch a train into Singapore town, which departed from the airport also. We knew that we were a bit buggered from flying – so, we stored our bags and went to find where we could shower and potentially lay our legs up for a while. As we moved around the place, we came across a place known as, The Jewel! It turned out to be a shopping centre four to five storeys high which featured a flipping waterfall in its centre! It’s so mind boggling especially when you travel from little old Rotorua, thinking that Auckland International is big. Man this made everything we had seen in New Zealand look so dated! Old, almost ancient ! The restaurants were brilliant, every food wise that you could dream or think off was there waiting to be prepared and consumed – we shopped around, ate Mexican of all things in Singapore airport next to a Waterfall in a massive building ?! When we had moved over the entire site, which ate at least three hours, we found a place to shower, which was perfect in preparation for our long flight back to New Zealand and right next door to the shower and lounge was a Movie theatre. Movies would roll over all day, all night and it was free. Why leave the airport ? I was thinking, bloody hell let’s just shift in! After such a seemingly long flight from Cambodia back to Singapore with an eventual long flight of 9 hours back to New Zealand, we were feed, hydrated, semi-rested but most importantly, the shower revived us. We could walk on to the plane, knowing that we had just showered at least 1 hour prior to departure. You honestly have no idea how good it feels – to slip into some clean clothes after a warm shower and settle into a movie as the plane runs down the tar mat.

So – this is where we ended our trip and eventually, we were called to our gate. We stopped in at a few stores to pick up our last gifts for the kids and ourselves, and finally boarded our plane, before kicking back in our premium economy seats for a chill-laxed flight back to New Zealand, back to cold old Auckland before driving the two and a half hours back to our humble little house watched over by our kids.I won’t bullshit you either, being home, took a while to sink in for me. But hey, all that means is, get some funds, do some work, make a plan and hit it again…..