z3rb

About this report

This is probably going to be a fairly long report. I have a tendency to go into too much detail, so if that's not your thing then look away now. I also get obsessed by things like price so I'm going to try and rate everything on my Value For Money By Western Standards™ on a scale of 1-10. There's going to be lots of pictures, and perhaps some naughty words at times. I'll try and keep it interesting and maybe even funny at times.

Trip Background

Back in August, a good friend of mine moved to Singapore as an exchange student. Very upsetting - obviously, but a good excuse to visit him and go to a part of the world I'd never been to before. I decided some time around the end of September to go in January.

From GLA you have two realistic options to get to SIN. Either you can go KLM GLA-AMS-SIN or EK GLA-DXB-SIN. When I booked my flights the KLM flights in Y were around £570 and the EK ones at £695. I've flown KLM before between GLA and AMS so I decided the extra money was probably worth it to fly with EK, since EK fly a 777 on the GLA-DXB sector and an A380 on the DXB-SIN sector, whereas KLM would be an A320 (boring) or an Emraer 190 between GLA-AMS and a 777 AMS-SIN and I was excited to try EK's product on the A380 even in Y. I did consider J for at least a couple of minutes before snapping out of it.

Return Y ticket booked, it was time to decide on what I'd do when I got there. From asking friends who'd been to Singapore already, it didn't seem like the kind of place it was worth travelling all that way to spend 10 days in - there's not terribly much to do there for a tourist and it's a very expensive city if you enjoy the things I do. Drinking, that is.

So we decided to go to Bali for a couple of days while I was over. Again, 2 options, ValueAir or Tiger Airways. I didn't think there'd be that much between them in terms of product, so I opted for the cheaper ValuAir (part of JetStar). £240 for 2 return tickets from SIN-DPS.

A couple of weeks before the trip, having not booked my Singapore hotel yet we decided to go to Kuala Lumpur as well. Flight options included Tiger Airways but my friend had already done this by bus and that seemed like the cheapest way of getting there...

Then it was time to play the waiting game until the big day finally arived.

Flight EK0028
Route: GLA-DXB
Date: 09/01/2013 - 13:15
Vehicle: B777-300ER

Picture the scene: I'm a fairly heavy smoker. Glasgow airport doesn't have a smoking area airside (a travesty really) so I'm having my last 5 or so cigarettes before I need to go through security. I'm also a man who likes to drink. I may have mentioned this before. I may be drinking as I type this. The problem with being a drinker and a smoker is that the two often intertwine in ways that people who are just drinkers couldn't possibly understand. If you have a drink or two, you must have a cigarette. That's the rules. So a couple of hours in the Servisair lounge at GLA followed by a 7ish hour flight on EK isn't an easy task. I'm not asking for sympathy; far from it in fact, it's my own damned fault that I have such an unhealthy lifestyle, I'm just painting a picture.

I digress.

Check in was a dawdle. Quick and efficient. I was there fairly early so there wasn't anyone in front of me.

Security at GLA is always quick even first thing on a Monday morning. This was a Wednesday so it was turbo quick.

Straight past all the duty free shops that I'd perused dozens of times - I wouldn't need them where I was going! To the lounge!

(side note: I qualified as Gold Status with Aer Lingus in December, allowing access to the Servisair lounge in GLA when flying EI. Unfortunately the week I qualified was also the week I stopped working on that project at work, so I never got to use my EI status to get into that lounge, so I figured I'd best check it out and just paid for access this one time)

First impressions of the Servisair Lounge is that it's very basic. £18 entry (A 5/10 on the VFMBWS™ scale). There's a great view of the apron from it which is nice, but the food selection is rubbish (a few choices of crisps, buscuits etc.), and the drinks selection... well I'll drink anything so whatever. 20 minutes since my last cigarette. A double Morgans and Coke down. Cravings increasing.

I continued to drink for a while, snapping a few pictures of planes. I was tracking EK0027 on some website and saw it land - here's a picture of it taxiing to its gate:



I continued drinking for a while, reading some business magazine whose name I can't remember trying to make myself look more important than I am. I drank a fair few, then it was time to wander to my gate with a couple of bathroom stops on the way there. Boarding was pretty quick considering the number of children on board. I was even greeted with "Welcome back Mr. z3rb" which was odd, having never flown EK before.

I'm a short haul kind of guy. My most frequented plane is an ATR-72 (EI-REM in fact). My only previous longhaul experience was in a 757 between EDI-EWR, so this was my first time in a widebody. I was liking what I saw.

I was in seat 20K which is 4 rows into the Y cabin. There was an empty seat between me and the guy in 20I, which was nice. I'm a pretty big guy (fat not muscles) so having heard that EK put 10 seats per row in their 777s I was expecting the worst but being used to ATR-72s this was pretty comfy. I settled in and explored the AVOD for a bit.

First impressions: The cabin is classily decorated, and the seats comfy. Decent recline. You're given a nice menu shortly after takeoff, I think the options were a chicken tikka curry or some salmon thing. The headphones that EK provide are awful, but you can put your own into the right hole on the AVOD and get stereo audio. 777-300ER's engines are loud. 20K has a pretty bad view due to the wing. The AVOD screen is big in Y on EK's 777s.


View from 20K.

About 30 minutes after takeoff there was a drinks service. Don't mind if I do. I had a red wine but can't remember the name of it. It did the job. Cigarette cravings at previously unseen levels. Meal service came around, and I had the curry. It was pretty good, the best airplane food I've had to date (not that I've had that much, but it certainly beats EI's crappy sandwitch selection!).

It was a pretty unnoteworthy flight. Around 7 hours. Many drinks (I think the air hostess was annoyed at me by the end, but I was always polite and courtious!) were had. The selection on ICE (Information, Communication and Entertainment, EK's IFE system) was good, so I watched a few episodes of Family Guy, a documentary on the Burj Khalifa, and Pitch Perfect (y'know, that musical with that fit lassie from Up In The Air that you'd never admit to your male friends that you'd watched). There was also a decent selection of music.




Approaching Dubai at approx. midnight local time, I saw the famous strip of skyscrapers including the Burj Khalifa (I just saw a documentary on that! Crazy!). Landing was smooth. Taxiing took forever (not quite AMS forever, but a long time for a man who'd drank enough to pee a gallon).




And then I was in DXB.

DXB connection

After passing through security in DXB my first port of call was to find A) A place to pee and B) A place to smoke. Catching my next flight was secondary to these two goals. I had a roughly thee hour connection now, so all was calm and well.

DXB has the nicest smoking lounges of any airport I've been to. DUB has a nice one, it's even outdoors so non-smokers don't mind too much going into it, but in the winter it's horrible. DXB's have good ventilation, good seating, and are sponsored by Winston which I suppose makes you want to replace the Marlboro Reds you'd bought back in Scotland for a pack of filthy Winstons? Who knows.

Drained and nicotine'd up it was time to find some food. I wasn't ready to leave the West yet, so the McDonalds near the B gates would have to do. 26 Dirhams for a Big Mac meal (a 5/10 on the VFMBWS™) as I recall. A few cigarettes and a beer or two in the Heinekken Lounge next to the Smoking Lounge I went to find my gate, which excitingly was in the newly opened (as in less than a week previously) Concourse A. Concourse A, for those who don't know, is DXB T3's dedicated A380 concourse, with room for 20 of the mad beasts.

I threw away my few remaining cigarettes knowing that I couldn't bring them into Singapore. I hated that I'd done this when I walked past the smoking lounge in Concourse A.

Am I talking about tobacco too much?

Part 2 incoming.

dddc

No, about peeing. I've had to go twice while reading this!

mkjr

what about a nico patch? i really feel for smokers since i had a buddy that quit and it was more miserable than some of his sports injuries with torn ACL's etc.

i'm liking this one...nice to get a perspective from back of the bus...i am a heavy drinker to pass out when in Y....

z3rb

I'll, uh, try to avoid talking about pee from now on. No guarantees though!

Let's continue:

Flight EK0354
Route: DXB-SIN
Date: 10/01/2013 - 03:25
Vehicle: A380-800

Boarding again was quick, considering the number of people that can fit inside the A380. I was in seat 42A, which is the 2nd row on the bottom deck. I didn't like Y in the A380 as much as the 777. The AVOD screen is much smaller, the interface on ICE just doesn't seem as "slick" (no swiping to move and such). Also with the stairs in lieu of a middle seating section it felt a bit claustrophobic (I say that as a man who's flown in ATR-72s dozens of times!). The windows are a bit awkward too, the plastic panel is really far away from the actual window making it hard to take photos and look out of. Row 41 doesn't have any windows at all!



When I boarded there was no indication of a delay, but we sat at the gate for 2 hours while a steady stream of people boarded the plane. This was well after final call so I assume there was a cancelled flight or something. Kind of irritating, but the gate-to-gate IFE kept me sane for the most part. Orange juice was distributed. No booze, I was losing my buzz by this stage.

My seatmates were a genuinely lovely Indian man in 42C who imparted plenty of wisdom about Singapore, and an exchange student who was moving to Singapore in 42B. They were good company.

Eventually the doors closed, and we were taxiing. 2 hours late.





In the air, meal and drink services were fairly quick. (But I was in the 2nd row so it was probably just that...) I had some awful fish thing with cous cous or something. I didn't eat it. Whisky. 12 year old Glenfiddich, which was nice to see on a plane so far from home.

I watched Rock of Ages on the IFE and tried and failed to get some sleep. Recline in these seats is better than the 777s I found. Annoyingly the IFE's headphone jack would only provide one channel with my own headphones, unlike the 777's so I was forced to use Emirates' shockingly bad headphones.


A bad photograph of the sunrise over India.


Some cool islands somewhere in the Indian Ocean.


Singapore.


SIN.

And then I was in Singapore.

Leaving SIN

You can go to Duty Free even when arriving in SIN, so I took advantage and bought a litre of vodka. Baggage claim took a while longer than I'm used to. I reunited with my friend after having not seen him in months, we grabbed a coffee in Starbucks (very cultural, I know. Trying new things and all that eh?) and I went and smoked. I'd mostly sobered up by this point but I'd been awake around 30 hours.

We had to make it to my friend's dorm room on the NTU campus, on the opposite side of the city (country even!). This meant taking the MRT, Singapore's lovely Mass Rapid Transit system, from the airport to Boon Lay, a full hour on the train, then connecting to a bus to get to the campus.

All told it was about an hour and a half from the airport.


Tired on the MRT.

I had decided that I didn't need a hotel for that night, as we'd be catching an early flight the next morning, so we'd agreed I'd just crash on his floor that night.

Dumped my bags at his non-air-conditioned-and-no-smoking-even-outdoors campus then we caught a bus to a hawker centre, and got some dinner. I had a duck and fried rice dish for S$3.50 (9/10 VFMBWS™) and a couple of 660ml bottles of Tiger for about S$6 each (6/10). Food was good. Beer was wonderfully cold. Singapore is hot, humid, and above all sweaty as hell.

We went back to campus and drank vodka. Until 1am. With a 7am flight. After having been awake for 30-odd hours.

We set 4 alarms.

Tune in next time for a horrible morning, a flight to Bali, and the first day in Bali!

aSiAnRiCk

Looking forward to your DPS report as I'm going there in March.

BNEFlyer

Nice report, glad you're enjoying SIN, it's one of my favourite cities. Out of curiosity though, why didn't you fly QR or KL from SIN-DPS? They'd have to be better options that TR or JQ?

You can purchase duty free when arriving into Australia as well, it's great to restock the bar when coming home.

Have fun in Bali!

z3rb

Thanks. I'm not sure why but I wasn't aware KL was an option. Looking now, I see that it's about the same price, too. Oh well.

Flight VF241
Route: SIN-DPS
Date: 11/01/2013 - 07:35
Vehicle: A320

One of the 4 alarms woke us up. 4am. Lovely.

I didn't feel great. My friend didn't feel great. That's a bit of an understatement really. The taxi was here, so we went to it. I don't remember much of the taxi ride so I must've fallen asleep on the way. It was S$50 (5/10 VFMBWS™) from NTU campus to SIN. We checked in then went to Burger King for breakfast.



Went through passport control, security is at the gate which I don't like as much as before airside. There's an outdoor smoking area at SIN which is nice. Checked out the duty free prices for my way home to GLA. Then we waited at the gate.


Not feeling too hot this morning. Well a little bit too hot. Because it's 20 degrees at 6:30am. What's up with that?


Boarding time.

I like A320s. This was was nice enough. Seats were comfortable but the legroom was a bit crappy.





After about 20 minutes in the air some chocolate roll thing was distributed. Neither of us felt ready for food yet so I can't comment on it, but it was nice to be offered food - even if just that - on a budget flight.

This is when things got a little funny. My friend said to me that he needed to throw up. "Oh God," I thought, "Please make it to the bathroom."

He made it to the bathroom, however he felt it wasn't all that important to close the door. I saw him vomiting from the bathroom mirror. Everyone in seats D, E, and F saw him vomiting from the bathroom mirror.

And then he was gone. He just wasn't there. I was confused. But then the air hostesses were going mental.

I put my face in my palm in shame. I can never fly VF again.

He'd fainted, which is something he'll never live down. It'll go down in my peergroup's folklore like the time my other friend put it in the wrong h- never mind.

I was asked to help him. The main purser lady said it was just low blood pressure, but little did she know it was actually just a raging hangover.


At least he got to sit in the SPECIAL CHAIR.

Other than that it was an uneventful flight. The approach to Bali is stunning, but I was a little disappointed that you approach from the East rather than the West. The runway sticks out to sea in the West which would've been cool.





In Indonesia you need a Visa On Arrival, at a cost of $25 USD or the equivalent in IDR, around 200,000RP if I recall rightly. Border control wasn't an issue.

Be aware when flying into DPS, something I've never seen before but I'm probably just ignorant to the ways of the world, is that there's self-appointed "porters" who look official and will grab your bags and carry then through customs for you and then demand a hefty tip. I gave him 100,000RP (About £6, a 1/10 VFMBWS™) but he demanded more. I got my bags back from him at this point. Just something to be aware of and to avoid. We did skip the queue at Customs thanks to him though. Whatever.

Then there's finding a taxi, which was pretty easy. There's a taxi booth on the right as you exit the terminal, however I'm told that if you walk a little bit further and find the BlueBird taxi rank then it's better. Certainly when you're on Bali watch out for the taxis. Only get BlueBird ones when hailing, as they seem to be the only ones to use their meters. And there's loads of other taxis who have logos that look suspiciously like the BlueBird ones so keep an eye out. The taxi from DPS to the place we were staying at was 120,000RP for around a half hour trip, not a bad price by Western Standards (a whopping 6/10) but the metered taxi on the way back was around 40,000 (9/10).

And then we were at the Pat-Mase villas where we'd be staying.

CelticIAH

That's what sweatys do when they come here to SIN....they sweat!

This is a great report, really enjoying it....a nice change from people complaining about having to drink Dom over Krug in F! I can definitely empathize with early morning hungover taxi rides to Changi followed by a budget flight...

I imagine this is what an eightblack trip report would have been like 15 years ago...!

ozdude

Nice report! You're a great writer!

CreativeBill

Excellent report!

I love that your idea of "looking after" your mate when he fainted included putting a camera in his suffering face.

kabroui

Great trip report!... Really enjoyed it.

And to anyone else going there, be aware of ANYBODY that talks to you ANYWHERE in Bali, as well as any purchases you make. I was there in Nov, and I've traveled to a lot of places in my life, but I've never ran into so many scammers and over-priced junk anywhere. Be on your guard and question every single rupiah you spend in this dump.

Penguinmoon

Really enjoying your trip report as well, as a smoker, I can identify. Bet you are LOVING the cigarette prices on Bali though....

You gave him 100,000, and he had the nerve to demand more???? The 100K was VERY generous to begin with.

Points Surfer

Great story....Thanks

greg99

Ha.

Hahahaha.

Hahahahahahaha.

(lest you be concerned that it went unappreciated).

Great TR.

Greg

z3rb

Thanks guys! Really glad people are enjoying it.

I wouldn't go as far as to say Bali's a dump, but you're quite right. A lot of scams and dodgy people about. If you can avoid the tourist areas it's a lot better though, e.g. Kuta beach is definitely a dump, but Jimbaran beach is a lot nicer.

I'll get to that, but yes! About £0.60 a pack, absolutely lovely. And there's Djarum blacks too which are hard to find in the UK and don't have the full 2.4mg Nicotine content here. ^

Bali Day 1


Still feeling a bit rough mate?


Maybe some delicious complimentary fruit juice will help!

We were at the check in for the Pat-Mase villas, however it was only 10am so we left our luggage there and asked for a recommendation for a water park. They recommended we go to a place called Green Park. I'd seen a billboard for it on the way to the villas and it looked alright. We got them to phone for a metered taxi.

Let me tell you about Green Park in Bali. First off, it's 40 minutes away from the villas by taxi. That's not a problem except for the fact that it was also in the middle of nowhere, in what seemed to be a place where a whole bunch of fancy hotels, golf courses and spas were going to be built but were abandoned. That didn't bode well. When we arrived it seemed pleasant enough. It was a really hot day with high humidity so I was looking forward to getting into the water. Entry was 120,000RP or thereabouts for foreigners, which is about £8. At the time I thought that must've been at least a 7/10 on the VFMBWS™ scale, but I was wrong. I'll explain.

First off, the place was completely devoid of guests other than us and maybe 2 other groups of people. Strike 1. We got changed and went into their slow-moving river thing, which was lovely and cool. Then we went to their wave pool, which was closed. Strike 2, but I suppose that could be forgiven. There are only 3 slides in the water park. I went on one, and well this is embarrassing but I managed to get stuck on it and had to push myself down it, much to the amusement of my fainting friend. The stairs up to the slides were also really rusty and didn't feel terribly safe. There was a slide which you use a tube on but I didn't try it and there was also the Death Slide as we named it. Basically it was just a straight forward bumpy slide. Except there was very little on the sides of the slide to keep you in, and you caught quite a bit of air on the bumps. And the pool it went into at the bottom was really shallow, with the speed you gather on the slide I managed to hurt my back. Strike 4? How many strikes are you even allowed in that stick ball game?

So I wouldn't recommend Green Park. I've heard WaterBom Bali is a LOT better.

I don't have any photos of it either unfortunately.

So it was around 2pm by now, and we had a choice of going to the beach or trying out the villas. We opted to head into Kuta to check out the beach, and I knew there was a Hard Rock Café there too (I'm kind of a fan...). Asked the Green Park people to phone us a taxi which they did, it took a long time to arrive since I doubt many taxis even come out this way.

Kuta



Kuta beach is pretty filthy. There's a lot of tourists and a lot of people trying to sell you things. The way onto the beach from where the taxi left us meant walking through a bazaar of awful shops. I would have spent some time looking at the various bits of tat but whenever I looked at something the shopkeeper would start trying to sell things to me which I personally hate. If I went into Tesco to buy bread, and the staff were all like "Buy my bread! £1!" I'd leave and do without the bread, even if I really wanted bread.

So then we went to the Hard Rock Café which I don't have much to say about since they're the same everywhere.


Lookin' preeeety cooool, if I may say so myself. Or like a twat, whatever.

I was really burned by this point so we went to find a pharmacy to buy some aftersun lotion. I bought some sunglasses from a guy. I lost the sunglasses I bought from a guy. Bought the lotion. Applied the lotion. Got a taxi back to the villas.

The villas were really good value for money. £210 for a 2 bedroom villa, with private pool, for 2 nights. A definite 8/10.

Here's some pictures of the villas. We spent the rest of that evening drinking in the pool, singing drunken songs where we replaced lyrics with the word "beer". (I bless the beer down in Africa).




There was a communal pool too.


Living room area. We watched Cartoon Network. It was swell.


I drowned.


Cigarettes are so cheap in Bali, but you can't bring them back into Singapore. Thus I had to smoke all these cigarettes before going back.

So that was day 1 in Bali. We hadn't yet decided what to do the next day yet.