Our flight, SQ 423, left from Mumbai a little before midnight. We had exit row seats towards the end of the lower deck and we were able to get priority boarding thanks to my United Premier Gold status. The meal service was dinner, more than an hour after take-off. We were able to catch a little sleep and before long we were starting our descent into Singapore.
We landed around 8:25 AM at Singapore’s Changi International Airport. I had signed us up for the Free Singapore Tour - City Sights Tour at 10:00 AM. The reporting time for the tour was 8:30 AM and after deplaning and walking we just made it to the tour desk in T3 to confirm our attendence. Indian nationals in transit through Singapore are visa-exempt for 96 hours, provided they hold a valid visa issued for USA.
After freshening up, we quickly joined the group assembled and headed downstairs to clear immigration following our tour guide. At first, we stood in line for the automated entry but then were redirected to the manual immigration line. We had filled in the arrival information online earlier. We had to go one by one and the immigration officer checked the visa for the USA and stamped us in.
The tour guide asked us to board the bus in the order which we had registered which I think was a good touch. The people who had planned this earlier got to pick the seats of their choice. We drove out from the airport as our tour guide told us about Singapore’s history.
Our first stop was the Merlion Park. We saw the Victoria Theatre and the Statue of Sir Stamford Raffles. Walking across the Anderson Bridge we got to the Merlion Park with great views of the Singapore Flyer, the Helix Bridge and the Benjamin Sheares Bridge. We could also see the Art Science Museum and the Marina Bay Sands across the water.
We had some time here to walk around. Unfortunately, the famous Merlion was covered in scafolding for maintenance and renovation related activities.
After spending some time there we got back into the bus and drove to our next stop, Gardens by the Bay. The main attraction here was the Supertrees lined with solar cells. There was a network of pathways with modern greenhouses & parks.
It started raining a little bit while we were there and we were able to use the ponchos we were given in the bus before we got down here. It was nice to walk around and see the place and after some time we assembled back near the bus and started our drive back to the airport.
We still had some time before our next flight so we decided to explore the Jewel Changi Airport. This is a huge shopping mall with stores and eateries and lush indoor gardens & a 40-m. waterfall in the centre. From there we walked to Terminal 2 for our next flight using the long walkway that connected the mall to the terminal building directly.
We passed through a baggage scan check and immigration to reach airside and visited the KrishFlyer Gold Lounge for travellers with Star Alliance Gold status thanks to my United MilagePlus Premier Gold.
The lounge was nice, albeit a bit dark. It wasn’t too crowded and there were good amount of options for things to eat and drink.
After spending some time there we walked to see the Sunflower Garden which had bright yellow sunflowers on a outdoor rooftop garden overlooking the runway.
We walked to the gate to board our next flight and there was a huge line for security check to get to the gate area. We had a chance to refill our water bottles after clearing the security check and boarded our flight SQ 946 to Denpasar Bali.
We had the last row seats which were just 2 seats in a 3-3-3 configuration. We were able to get priority boarding thanks to my United Premier Gold status. The meal service was dinner after take-off. The flight was not too long and before long we were starting our descent into Denpasar.
We landed around 9:00 PM and stood in line for immigration. We had applied for the eVisa in advance, so we didn’t have to spend time filling forms there. But as luck would have it, the line we were in was moving at a very slow pace, almost not moving at all. After that test of patience, we collected our bag and bought a local SIM card at the airport. They activated it for us and we walked to our hotel, The Kutaya, which was about 12 minutes away.
We stayed here for 3 nights and chose this since it was walking distance from the airport and our flight was arriving at night. It didn’t take us too long to walk there, but the roads weren’t great for bags with wheels. We got a room on the ground floor in front of the pool. It was clean and basic. We were going to spend most of our time outside so it didn’t really matter.
