Thursday 22^nd of May      SINGAPORE – DUBAI – HEATHROW     The day that went on             forever…….

Robyn writes: We were up bright and early in our Park View hotel room (well, technically not bright – the sun was not up at 6am!) We’d worked out that we needed to catch a taxi at about 7.15 to get to the airport, thus giving us quarter of an hour to gulp down some breakfast, which started at 7. By the time we went downstairs, it was absolutely pouring – a real tropical downpour. We had our breakfast, collected our bags from the room, and went outside to wait for our taxi, who came along promptly. We did get a bit damp getting into the cab, but we were soon on our way, and deposited at Changi before 8am. (Another advantage to the Park View – usually a taxi into the city will cost around $30 to $60, but this only cost us $24, as we were so close to the highway out there.)

We checked in our bags for our Emirates flight – as usual, there were helpful people there to make sure everything went smoothly. Then we went through for a stroll around the shops (very high end!) and finally to our gate, through security and onto our plane. 

                                                               Our plane being prepared.

The flight to Dubai was about 7 and a half interminable hours…..time for lots of video watching! Lex watched a documentary about Led Zeppelin; I really enjoyed the latest remake of Stephen King’s Salem’s Lot. Then I found a BBC TV series, Unforgotten, so I watched the first three episodes of that. Finally, we landed in Dubai, where we had just over an hour to get off the plane then get ourselves to our connecting flight. Fortunately, this all went pretty smoothly. It was 43 degrees outside, we were told, but equally fortunately we were safely in the airconditioning! We wandered around the shops a bit but weren't rich enough to buy anything. 

                                                         Dubai airport - briefly

We were all reloaded onto our Emirates double decker Airbus – huge! Then it was goodbye Dubai, and onto the final leg of our journey. I calculated that this day actually lasted about 36 hours; roughly 20 of it travel time. The trip to Heathrow was about 7 and a half hours, all of it still with the sun shining, though to our body clocks by now it was well after midnight! We kept watching videos (I finished off Unforgotten, plus a few documentaries) and listening to music. Lex had a few decent naps, but I estimate I got about half an hour’s sleep in the whole trip. I’d finally fallen properly asleep about an hour out of Heathrow when the stewardess woke me to ask me if I wanted a sandwich. I said yes please so I didn’t have to eat once we reached the hotel! All painful things must come to an end, anyway, and we finally made our descent into Heathrow, got very quickly through the almost empty immigration hall, and found ourselves a taxi to take us to the Ibis in Bath Road, just a few minutes away. We were soon booked into our (tiny) room, had wonderful showers, and collapsed into bed for what we hoped would be a solid night’s sleep. Spoiler alert: it wasn’t.

                                          We could see the captain's view - finally, Heathrow!