After a quick shower (another thing I'll have to live without, though I hope I can grab a shower at the Changi Business Class Lounge. For reasons not worth getting into here, I have to fly first from Ho Chi Minh City, to Bangkok, then to Singapore, two 90-120min flights that are a bit annoying to have to work through. The first flight from Ho Chi Minh City to Bangkok was easy, with three seats to myself and a nice dosa-type breakfast served. To some degree, Thai Smile is a low-cost carrier (a subsidiary of Thai Airways), but in a 75-min flight they are able to serve a small meal, and a round of tea or coffee. Fairly good efficiency.
Before the flight, I got one last view of Ho Chi Minh City, driving to the airport. It was during the morning work rush hour. Luckily we were going in reverse, but it was jarring how many near accidents we got into with bikers. The bikers run HCMC streets, and people in cars have to just get used to it. I guess they all have, but I would be terrified to drive here. The HCMC airport is quite nice, if a bit small. But I prefer it to Bangkok's airport, with the exception of being able to use the lounge's in Bangkok.
Speaking of which, I was able to go to the Singapore Airline's Silverkris lounge in Bangkok. It isn't too big, but had a full buffet lunch set-up with everything from western food, to Tom Yum soup, to much else. They also had these little pods that more or less mimic'd business class seats. The flight itself was uneventful, lasting about 30 min shorter than schedule, but with Singapore still giving a full meal with options, with I getting a Indonesian chicken dish (kind of like a Nasi Lemak), with a rare seared tuna steak starter. It was a nice preview of what is to come on the longer flight.
Changi Airport was next. I didn't have enough time to realistically go downtown, and didn't want a full meal before the flight anyway. So instead I decided to explore the world's best airport - my opinion sure, but also pretty close to a fact. It was too dark to see all of the various gardens they have strewn about (the cactus garden, the sculpture garden) and while I did go for the butterfly garden, until I entered I didn't realize that the butterflies are only fluttering by to 5pm. What I did check out was The Jewel, the mall that adjoins Changi Terminal 1, and is reachable by walkway from all terminals. The one catch is that you have to leave the sterile part of the airport (i.e. pass through immigration).
It was simple though, immigration at Changi is always memorably quick - even quicker this time going back in which was an automated lane where you scan your passport, scan your boarding pass, and you're in the heart of Changi.
Anyway, The Jewel is stunning. The waterfall at its core is beautiful at all levels, from where you enter, to the roof level, to the ground level. The greenery and floral nature at all levels is gorgeous, from waterfalls, to rock gardens, to palm trees, to all of it. Around this area is also a gorgeous mall with tons of restaurants (including I would learn, a Jumbo Seafood - where I normally go for Black Pepper Crab), boutiques, coffee shops, etc. Of course, Changi is not centrally located, so other than catering for transit passengers, I'm not sure why they built this thing. But they did, and its beautiful.
Before I knew it, I was back in Chiangi and in the Business Class Lounge, which is huge, had a larger buffet spread, with mostly the same fare that the Bangkok one had, along with multiple choices of steamed dumplings, a live area of either pasta or Nasi Lemak, a full service bar, and shower suites. There sadly was a fairly long wait on shower suites, but I was still able to snag one before my flight. The best part of the lounge though? The sleeping pods that they had hidden tucked away in one corner, maybe done as to almost to make it so people don't know of them.
Soon enough I had to leave the cozy confines of the lounge, to get greeted with teh cozy confines of seat 14A on the way to Newark. This is technically not the world's longest flight anymore, as during the pandemic Singapore replaced it briefly with a Singapore to JFK flight (which is about 7 miles longer). Surprsingly, Singapore now has both of the flights running daily - somehow post covid they have more daily seats direct between New York and Singapore than before.
Anyway, despite the seat being the same as it was on my Bangkok to Singapore flight, it just seemed a bit cozier. I will say the seat is rather firm, though leather, and is helped by the duvet and very cozy comforter they give you for the bed. The most unique part of the seat is that there is no easy way to get it in and out of lie-flat mode. Effectively the seat folds down to reveal a bed - think of it almost as putting the back row down in an SUV. Also, the only real negative about the flight is the footwell is a bit small and awkwardly angled. The seat itself is wider than most business class seats, but the discrepancy creates some challenges on finding the right position to sleep in.
That's where my complaints with Singapore start and end - the rest of the flight was divine. They give free wifi to business class customers, and the wifi worked well throughout the flight. The food I'll come to in a minute, but they have a new 'book the cook' option which let's you select off menu set main dishes, that greatly increase the options afforded to you. The only odd part of the flight is their meal service was a bit inverted, with the main meal (4 courses) was midflight, and the slightly lighter meal (3 courses - so really no huge difference) was at the start. On flights this lengthy there is always a bit of juggling of what time zones you use to set the flights - effectively the main meal coincided with dinnertime in New York.
The movie choices were great - far better than I remember them being in 2019. I watched all of Kimi (excellent, and super short but in a good way), The Batman (excellent, but also too long - granted I started this on the first flight), Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (about as good as I remember), Everything, Everywhere All At Once (Incredible, and surprised to see it hasn't got oscar buzz), and finally rewatching The Lion King start to finish for the first time in maybe 15 years (still holds all the way up).
There were two multi-course full blown dinners, one at the start of the flight (dinner time, to some degree in Singapore) and one mid-way through (lines up with dinner time in New York). But oddly no set breakfast meal right before landing - people could ask ofr desserts, cheeses, fruit, etc., prior to landing but nothing set.
Anyway the two meals were excellent. I went with Singapore's "book the cook" option which let's you select from about 25 different main courses of different cuisines ahead of time to go beyond the set 3-4 options standard for hte flight. That meant me going with beef rendang for the first meal, and a malaysian fish curry for the second. On the first meal, the first course was a smoke salmon, soft-boiled egg, potato salad with an interesting green curry they drizzled on top. Along with that was a bread selectin, and then a great plate or rendang. The rendang was really excellent, served along-side curried vegteables, a dried prawn pickle and yellow rice. I was quite pleased with my book the cook choice there. Desert was a tasty chocolate cake.
The second meal - effectively hte last meal of my trip, was first a plate of chicken satay, which was excellent three skewers with an overwhelming amount of peanut paste. Then a starter of tuna salad, lightly seared tuna steaks and greens - this was good though sadly the same starter I had on my flight from Bangkok to Singapore. The main was the fish curry, which I was pleasantly surprised to find out it had curried large prawns as well. The curry was excellent, and went well with the rice and a helping of dried prawn pickle. For a last meal, it was quite good along wiht a really nice date pudding.
Singapore Airlines service was great as usual, the bedding soft, the head-phones perfectly noise cancelling and they made 18h15m feel significantly shorter, which was nice. Ending a vacation is never fun, but doing so in this style makes it as pleasant an experience as possible. A great capper to a great vacation - with a full trip retrospective, be it an A to Z or something else to come.
