There and Back Again

 

I think I have really worked my passage this time during my week in Singapore, although I still find it amazing they are prepared to meet the ferocious costs of a business class flight from Boston to London and then on to Singapore. Just as well though, as it’s a gruelling flight, no doubt about that : two hours to Boston, two hours waiting in the airport, six hours in flight, two hours connection time, 14 hour flight, I hour to hotel  - 27 hours of journey time. It’s worst coming back as my Heathrow connection is actually eight hours, making 33 in all. This explains my filling in time writing this, broken up by the occasional stroll around the lounge and little snack treats every now and again. In the wait-over I got through all the work in the laptop package I took with me, which was very good -= a real bonus in fact. 

Its mizzly here at Heathrow, and the coronation is on the screens but with sound very muted visually. There are little gatherings of people watching them all. On the plane a packet of Joseph’s Eton Mess Gourmet Popcorn appeared on my tray-table while I was sleeping.  

    In Singapore, my programme was packed and I had virtually no free time at all. Two meetings with the Singapore navy (one over breakfast at 0700), and one with the Indians, plus my running a ‘fireside chat’ with their Head of Strategy. Senior officers in the Singapore navy are much younger than their counterparts anywhere else, and so engaging with them is slightly unnerving.  I participated in a very strange press conference on the Conference itself in which the 50 odd journalists there asked just two trivial questions about session timings. I was expecting something like the West Wing versions of this so was very disappointed. I did, though, two filmed interviews with Agence France Presse and Singapore’s Channel News in the midst of the Conference throng, with lights, big microphones and all the usual schemozzle. That was more like it. The Straits Times published an op-ed by me on the day I arrived.

The main event of the week was a whole day conference which ended with my chairing a discussion of no less than five Chiefs of Navy from India, the Philippines, New Zealand, our own Second Sea Lord from the Royal Navy and the Commander of the US Pacific Fleet. They were all very good and the session went down well. I knew three of them beforehand and that helped a lot.  After that I sat passively through an afternoon workshop on maritime law, recovering.

The Conference dinner was a very grand affair at the Gardens by the Bay, where the Singaporeans have imported whole trees in their bid to create displays of every climate in the world. It’s an amazing place. So was the dinner, here’s my table.

        The food was interesting – everything uncompromisingly Chinese/Singaporean including the famous chill crab which I can take or leave but tend to leave if I can ! Several speeches, and a concert of Singaporean songs from about 30 young damsels, naval daughters from the base.

One of the most memorable things of the whole week was the warships visit in Changi naval base. It was as hot as hell, terribly humid, especially in a heavy business suit and carrying a wad of conference papers and the like. I ended up, purely coincidentally on an India ship where I was recognised from the earlier session and treated like royalty, pushed to the front of the drinks queue and give a big glass of gin with the tiniest splash of tonic, which went down a treat. The following morning I was briefly incommoded by an upset stomach and wondered, as one does, about the ice but think it was more likely the rushed Jumbo Sea Food event before the naval base visit on Singapore’s east side. But the Indians were entertaining.

Four ferocious young men mainly in black treated us to an exhibition of traditional stick and sword fighting. It was obviously all very carefully choreographed but looked terribly dangerous, as I suppose it was intended to.

The conference hotel was the Pan Pacific where we had stayed a few years ago once or twice. It’s built like a giant triangle with a hollow atrium and had about 40 floors. (Fortunately I was on floor 7 which was much more convenient). I tried to take a photo of the inside looking up, with the lifts going up and down. The pool was very nice and I must admit I did get a lazy hour there too, but that plus a little bit of wandering around a nearby shopping centre vainly looking for a barber was about the only taste of Singapore itself that I got.

The flight back, I can now safely report was absolutely fine, although ended with very big queues at Boston for both immigration and baggage. At first there were only two booths operating for several hundred visa holders but I found when I finally got there that I was through in a trice – and didn’t even have to supply the usual thumb prints. Luggage was a bit of a strain. I am always convinced that my suitcase, especially when being transferred from one flight to another, is going to end up in Ulan Bator and so was greatly relieved when it finally appeared very much towards the end of the queue. I suppose that this reflected its going into the load so much earlier than any of the others. This all added another hour to the journey home, making 34 hours in all, I suppose.

All was well when I finally reached the house and now after a shower and a good sleep, I feel as though I have never been away at all ! Just a bit gritty round the eyes.