Singapore on a shoestring
- Angus
- Nov 28, 2017
- 2 min read
On our journey from Bali to Krabi, Thailand, we had a long overnight layover of about 16 hours in Singapore. Singapore is one of the most developed countries in the world thanks to its rapid industrialisation during the later years of the previous century and its transition to a service centred, free market economy. But enough about my nugatory economics degree, what did we do with our 16 hours?
Well, we found out that being rich means you can totally pimp out your airport. Singapore airport is persistently voted one of the best in the world and with movie theatres, butterfly gardens, a giant slide and seemingly infinite shops we could see why. In fact, Singapore is so rich that they can even afford to offer a range of free tours around the city. All you have to do is find the registration desk in the Transit Zone and register for the tour you like, they will sort out the rest. Our flight from Bali happened to land in time for the City Sights Tour which brings you into the heart of the city where you can see the famous Merlion as well as a few other pretty buildings (that I'm not cool enough to know the names of) lit up in the night sky.
The bus will drop you off in the centre and give you around 30 minutes for pictures before you re-board and head towards the quite gorgeous Gardens by the Bay. Here you will feel like you are on the set of James Cameron's Avatar as the light show reveals huge alien-like trees.
Overall the tour took around two hours from departing to returning to the airport. Aside from the fact that the tour was free, it was also a really nice and succinct way to see the city (and country) which can really be done in a day, as our guide Joyce informed us. After the tour we slept in the airport departures hall before being allowed through immigration to catch our flight to Thailand.
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