Since I am a massive points whore, I booked the cheapest flight available from Rio de Janeiro to Bali, Indonesia. It cost 40,000 miles and $83.70 in taxes and fees. The routing, however, was ridiculous. I left at 10am on June 29 and was scheduled to arrive in Bali on July 1 at 9:30pm. I'd like to point out that there are 30 days in June.
The routing went something like this: Rio de Janeiro - Sao Paolo (6 hour layover) - Johannesburg (7 hour layover) - Singapore (13 hour layover) - Bali.
Even though I was facing back to back redeyes, I thought I could handle it. I've been to many places (41 countries and countless cities) so it's not like I havent seen abnormal things before. Maybe I was just delerious from lack of sleep, but some things I experienced on these flights was downright strange.
First, on South African airways, I learned it is illegal to take off or land with blankets on passengers laps. And it is strictly enforced. If someone on the flight doesnt speak English of Portuguese, the flight attendants use force to pull blankets off of laps. No kidding. Another strange thing is that right before take off, the flight attendants go down both aisles spraying disinfectant behind them. Like, one can in each hand so they look like a car with dual exhaust pipes blazing down the highway.
Once we landed, things got back to normal and I got a heavy dose of Apartheid history straight away. Out of character for me, I was a bit nervous about exploring Johannesburg on my own, so I enlisted the help of one of those airport tourist agencies. Freedom was my guide, and he originally quoted me $250 for the brief tour of Joburg. This was waaaaay out of my budget, and we landed on $100 which is still overpriced, but safer than doing it on my own. Plus, I knew that the city tour in Singapore was going to be free, so it really averages out to $50 per tour...
Freedom and I get to his car, a slick looking BMW and I make that first mistake that everyone makes in a country where they drive on the wrong side of the road...I tried to get into the drives side. And Freedom made that joke that everyone makes when they are with someone who thinks they drive on the wrong side of the road, "That's the wrong side, unless you want to drive?" He must get really tired of making that joke.
We get in the car and start driving. Before we even leave the airport parking garage, I belt out Shakira's line, "This is South Africa..." He is not amused and I figure we are now even with bad jokes.
Jburg is really...flat. The terrain was very flat and almost gold in color. Coincidentally, Jburg was pretty much founded around gold mines. As we are nearing Soweto (the black neighborhood of Nelson Mandela, Apartheid uprisings, etc), I notice a bunch of hills. Freedom tellls me those are basically landfills from the gold mines. It is something like 2 tons of waste for every ounce of gold. Pretty insane.
We get to Soweto and he shows me the football stadium that basically was the site of the beginning to the end of Apartheid. Students in the 70s were getting frustrated with the Afrikaans being forced upon them in schools(South Africa has something like 11 official languages). I guess the Afrikaans was viewed as oppressive to the students. It wasnt the language itself, but rather what it symbolized in their Batu education system. So they staged protests. During one such protest in 1976, they were marching from Soweto to the stadium and the police started shooting. The first victim was 13 year old Hector Pieterson. He is now kind of the symbol of the uprising. We went to an amazing musuem in Hector Pieteron's honor. We also visited Nelson Mandela's first house. It was EXTREMELY tiny, and remarkable that after he was released from prison in the 90s, he came back to live in this tiny brick house but had to move because he was getting too much attention in this modest abode. (Sidenote: I normally HATE when people use the word "abode" especially with "humble abode" but it seemed to fit nicely into this story). The street that Nelson Mandela lived on (Vilakazi Street) is also a quite famous street bc it is the home to 2 Nobel Peace Prize winners - the big man himself and Desmond Tutu.
About 20 hours later, my next extended stopover is in Singapore. My only word about the airport is WOW. Any jaded frequent traveler would be impressed. There are business class lounges galore, a free movie theater, a butterfly garden, koi fish ponds, free foot and calf massages, free mints at every immigration counter and general hospitality that is imagineable at say, LAX or O'Hare. I immediately go to the first lounge, take a leisurely shower and then sign up for the free city tour. I have some time to kill before the 9am tour, so I go back to a different lounge. I indulge in a breakfast of chicken nuggets and chocolate eclairs (and if you happened to be on facebook chat during this time, you were surely informed of my breakfast of champions).
When the Singapore city tour started, I sat back to enjoy the freeness of it. Well, I guess in my head I was pricing it out at $50 to even out the $100 I paid in South Africa. Regardless, Singapore so far was what I expected. Until the guide started talking. At first, she apologizes that she is so tired. She tells us that the original guide called her at 7am with diarrhea and asked her to do the tour. So she had to hurry up, wake up, shower and come in for the 9am tour. She really didnt mind, though, because it is quite hard to lead a tour with diarrhea. She kept on saying diarrhea and it was a little bit disturbing in this otherwise very clean, very strict place. Then she starts telling us about something, and it doesnt really seem to make sense. And then she says, "I don't know why I am talking right now." Eventually she pulls it together and we have a quite enjoyable tour of Singapore. Most interesting to me is that there is a 100 SGD limit for Singaporians each day in the casinos. And if a friend or family member has a gambling problem, they can call a hotline and get that person banned FOR LIFE from all casinos in Singapore.
After the formal tour was over, I felt oriented enough (no pun intended) to explore Singapore on my own. My destination: The Raffles Hotel. For a hotel-phile like me, this is the MECCA of luxury hotels. The staff were so lovely when I explained that I love hotels and gave me a private tour and showed me some of the suites. Also worth mentioning is that the Singapore Sling was invented at the Long Bar at the Raffles. But for $30.60 SGD for one Singapore Sling, I think that it should go extinct here too.
The routing went something like this: Rio de Janeiro - Sao Paolo (6 hour layover) - Johannesburg (7 hour layover) - Singapore (13 hour layover) - Bali.
Even though I was facing back to back redeyes, I thought I could handle it. I've been to many places (41 countries and countless cities) so it's not like I havent seen abnormal things before. Maybe I was just delerious from lack of sleep, but some things I experienced on these flights was downright strange.
First, on South African airways, I learned it is illegal to take off or land with blankets on passengers laps. And it is strictly enforced. If someone on the flight doesnt speak English of Portuguese, the flight attendants use force to pull blankets off of laps. No kidding. Another strange thing is that right before take off, the flight attendants go down both aisles spraying disinfectant behind them. Like, one can in each hand so they look like a car with dual exhaust pipes blazing down the highway.
Once we landed, things got back to normal and I got a heavy dose of Apartheid history straight away. Out of character for me, I was a bit nervous about exploring Johannesburg on my own, so I enlisted the help of one of those airport tourist agencies. Freedom was my guide, and he originally quoted me $250 for the brief tour of Joburg. This was waaaaay out of my budget, and we landed on $100 which is still overpriced, but safer than doing it on my own. Plus, I knew that the city tour in Singapore was going to be free, so it really averages out to $50 per tour...
Freedom and I get to his car, a slick looking BMW and I make that first mistake that everyone makes in a country where they drive on the wrong side of the road...I tried to get into the drives side. And Freedom made that joke that everyone makes when they are with someone who thinks they drive on the wrong side of the road, "That's the wrong side, unless you want to drive?" He must get really tired of making that joke.
We get in the car and start driving. Before we even leave the airport parking garage, I belt out Shakira's line, "This is South Africa..." He is not amused and I figure we are now even with bad jokes.
Jburg is really...flat. The terrain was very flat and almost gold in color. Coincidentally, Jburg was pretty much founded around gold mines. As we are nearing Soweto (the black neighborhood of Nelson Mandela, Apartheid uprisings, etc), I notice a bunch of hills. Freedom tellls me those are basically landfills from the gold mines. It is something like 2 tons of waste for every ounce of gold. Pretty insane.
We get to Soweto and he shows me the football stadium that basically was the site of the beginning to the end of Apartheid. Students in the 70s were getting frustrated with the Afrikaans being forced upon them in schools(South Africa has something like 11 official languages). I guess the Afrikaans was viewed as oppressive to the students. It wasnt the language itself, but rather what it symbolized in their Batu education system. So they staged protests. During one such protest in 1976, they were marching from Soweto to the stadium and the police started shooting. The first victim was 13 year old Hector Pieterson. He is now kind of the symbol of the uprising. We went to an amazing musuem in Hector Pieteron's honor. We also visited Nelson Mandela's first house. It was EXTREMELY tiny, and remarkable that after he was released from prison in the 90s, he came back to live in this tiny brick house but had to move because he was getting too much attention in this modest abode. (Sidenote: I normally HATE when people use the word "abode" especially with "humble abode" but it seemed to fit nicely into this story). The street that Nelson Mandela lived on (Vilakazi Street) is also a quite famous street bc it is the home to 2 Nobel Peace Prize winners - the big man himself and Desmond Tutu.
About 20 hours later, my next extended stopover is in Singapore. My only word about the airport is WOW. Any jaded frequent traveler would be impressed. There are business class lounges galore, a free movie theater, a butterfly garden, koi fish ponds, free foot and calf massages, free mints at every immigration counter and general hospitality that is imagineable at say, LAX or O'Hare. I immediately go to the first lounge, take a leisurely shower and then sign up for the free city tour. I have some time to kill before the 9am tour, so I go back to a different lounge. I indulge in a breakfast of chicken nuggets and chocolate eclairs (and if you happened to be on facebook chat during this time, you were surely informed of my breakfast of champions).
When the Singapore city tour started, I sat back to enjoy the freeness of it. Well, I guess in my head I was pricing it out at $50 to even out the $100 I paid in South Africa. Regardless, Singapore so far was what I expected. Until the guide started talking. At first, she apologizes that she is so tired. She tells us that the original guide called her at 7am with diarrhea and asked her to do the tour. So she had to hurry up, wake up, shower and come in for the 9am tour. She really didnt mind, though, because it is quite hard to lead a tour with diarrhea. She kept on saying diarrhea and it was a little bit disturbing in this otherwise very clean, very strict place. Then she starts telling us about something, and it doesnt really seem to make sense. And then she says, "I don't know why I am talking right now." Eventually she pulls it together and we have a quite enjoyable tour of Singapore. Most interesting to me is that there is a 100 SGD limit for Singaporians each day in the casinos. And if a friend or family member has a gambling problem, they can call a hotline and get that person banned FOR LIFE from all casinos in Singapore.
After the formal tour was over, I felt oriented enough (no pun intended) to explore Singapore on my own. My destination: The Raffles Hotel. For a hotel-phile like me, this is the MECCA of luxury hotels. The staff were so lovely when I explained that I love hotels and gave me a private tour and showed me some of the suites. Also worth mentioning is that the Singapore Sling was invented at the Long Bar at the Raffles. But for $30.60 SGD for one Singapore Sling, I think that it should go extinct here too.
How fun to be able to experience --at a safe and cheap distance -- your remarkable travels! I enjoy each and every communication.
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