Sri Lanka: Mirissa, Galle Fort, Nuwara Eliya, Weligama, Pinnewala
from Here
Japan: Ashina (my house)
Do you realize how excellent chances are that you cannot go directly to Sri Lanka from where you are now? There are like FIVE airports in the entire world that have daily direct flights to Sri Lanka. Singapore’s Changi International Airport is one of them and the one we flew to, to fly from.
Because the price of airfare mattered to us, our itinerary included lengthy layovers at Changi International both directions. From Tokyo to Singapore, Jennell and I flew JAL, arriving in Singapore just before 1:00 in the morning. Our connecting flight on Sri Lankan Airlines wouldn’t depart until 9:30am—a fact which caused sufficient distress to motivate us to reserve a six-hour block of time in a room at the transit hotel located in Terminal 2. Apparently Changi International does solid business with passengers flying with this type of connection situation because three of the four terminals at Changi International Airport have a transit hotel…to include swimming pools. If you stay at the transit hotel in the terminal where you arrive, you can totally bypass the Customs scenario. Although our transit hotel room could only be described as Spartan at best, it had a private bathroom and we each had a bed in which to collapse. Six hours later we got up, charged a Subway breakfast (sandwiches, chips, and drinks) on a credit card, and inched our way through a crazy congestion of the masses mobbed in front of the three counter ladies attempting to serve those in need of boarding passes for the upcoming flight to Colombo on Sri Lankan Airlines.
On our return trip through Changi International, we arrived just before 11:00 in the morning, and our flight to Tokyo was not scheduled to depart until just before midnight. Now for daytime layovers, the airport offers city tours of Singapore by bus. If you opt just for the bus tour, which pretty much means you’re on the bus the entire time—no dining out, walking the streets and shops, or touring by foot—you can bypass the Customs scenario once again. After lunching at the airport, Jennell and I did take the bus tour. Despite views only through a bus window into a pretty steady tropical downpour, Singapore enchanted; I would consider visiting it in a more conventional manner another time. Back at the airport about three hours later, we located the Hard Rock Café for dinner, and then browsed airport shops, read, snoozed, or surfed the Internet on the banks of computers set up at various places in our terminal until we could finally board our JAL flight back to Japan.
Should one be required to while away extended portions of a day—or a night—at an airport, one could do far worse than Changi International!
2 comments:
Those lay over gems are helpful and convenient - any thing to avoid customs one extra time. gwh
Singapore has an interesting crossover cuisine. Many great noodle dishes tinged with curry powder. Not with fresh spice combos as in India, or fragrant pastes as in Thailand, but good old curry powder. Surprisingly tasty and different.
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