Day 23 - Friday 22nd September

This morning we would be leaving Siem Reap and flying to Singapore. The hotel had organised a car to pick us up at 8:15am.

After breakfast in the hotel restaurant again, we finished packing and went down to the hotel lobby soon after 8am. The supervisor asked us to fill in a survey form about our stay and we naturally gave them high marks. We told the supervisor that their staff are great.

When the car arrived, one of the reception staff helped us with our bags and then, to our amazement, jumped in the front passenger seat to come with us to the airport. This was extraordinary. I've never had this experience before and probably never will again.

The trip to the airport took only 20 minutes. We'd been wondering how modern the airport would be and we were pleasantly surprised. It wasn't shiny and modern like many international airports. Instead its architecture was consistent with Cambodian heritage.

At the check-in counter, we bumped into two other groups who'd been on the Scenic Spirit river cruise with us. There was no queue at the check-in counter and no queue at customs or at  the security check. We were sitting in the lounge at the departure gate before 9am - plenty of time for a scheduled departure of 10:40am.

Suzy made a couple of trips to the duty free shops. In one of her visits, she came across the New Zealanders who'd been on the river cruise and then we noticed two of the Scenic guides.

Initially a turbo-prop plane arrived at the gate. This surprised us because we were expecting a jet. It would have been like catching a Qantaslink flight in rural NSW. However, our jet aircraft arrived at about 10am.

The plane was labelled Silkair which is part of the Singapore Airlines group. There were plenty of spare seats and we'd managed to organise a window seat and an aisle seat with an empty seat between us. During the flight, I saw several people spread out over three seats having a snooze.

Although it was only a two hour flight, they served us a hot meal soon after we took off. We'd already had breakfast at the hotel and it was too early for lunch. They were serving alcohol and so we both had a small bottle of French red wine.

Singapore's Changi airport is huge and well organised. There was almost no queue at immigration and the queue for taxis was short. The journey to our hotel was along a wide motorway decorated with flowers on both sides.

Our hotel is called Sofitel SO and it's well located near the centre of the city. This hotel has style, elegance and class. Our room is in the Heritage Wing and there is a newer wing adjacent to it called the Hip Wing.

We were totally blown away by our room. For a start it's spacious and has a big bed - bigger than I've ever seen before - bigger than king size. To could sleep a whole family in this bed. There is a separate room for the toilet and in the bathroom, there is a separate shower and a separate bathtub.

Then there's the technology. The room phone is an iPhone sitting in a docking station beside the bed. On the other side of the bed is an iPad Mini that controls everything in the room including the lights, the TV, the curtains, air conditioning, etc.

Our first outing for the day was to buy a local SIM card for my mini WiFi device. At the airport, I'd noticed an advertisement from Singtel for a SIM card with 100Gb of data with a 7-day limit for only $15.

The hotel concierge suggested we go to the Chinatown markets where there are numerous telecommunication shops. We set out on foot to walk to the market which was only about 15 minutes away.

When we got close, we pulled out the map the hotel had given us when a old man came up to us and asked if he could help. Initial I thought he might be about to take us to his bother's tailor shop or his cousin's jewelry shop but it turned out that he genuinely wanted to help us. He then walked with us into the shopping centre to show us where to go.

After trying several little shops, we eventually found a Singtel shop where we bought the SIM card we wanted. It worked and we were in business.

Next we planned to go to Marina Bay Sands. At first we lined up at the taxi rank but gave up waiting and organised a Uber ride. With hindsight, the taxi would have been quicker because the driver had trouble finding us.

By this time it was almost 6pm and the Friday evening traffic in the middle of the city was very heavy. Unlike other places we've been to recently, there were almost no motor bikes - just cars, vans and buses - including double-decker buses. Eventually the Uber driver dropped us off at the entrance to Tower 1.

The building at Marina Bay Sands consists of three tall modern towers and on top of the towers there is a "boat". Our plan was to go to the top to admire the view. It turned out that the Sky Bar was in Tower 3 and there was a long queue of people waiting to buy tickets to go up to the top.

With tickets in hand, we caught the lift to level 57. Our red tickets qualified us for entry to the bar on the deck overlooking the city. If we'd gone for the cheaper white tickets we would have been able to go onto the outer observation desk to get a better view.

Wine in the bar area was pretty pricey. We paid $27 for each glass of a McLaren Vale red wine. However we got a $20 credit on each glass for our red tickets. What they often don't tell you as that they then add on tax and a service charge.

As we sipped on our wine, the sun set gradually over the tall city buildings lighting up the clouds with an attractive pink glow. It wasn't easy to take photos because the bar area was so crowded.

Yolanda had told Suzy that we needed to check out the Gardens by the Bay and so we caught the lift down and crossed a footbridge in search of this area. We ended up in a large shopping mall before going outside onto the large promenade next to the bay.

There were hundreds of people standing or sitting around looking towards the river and so we figured they must have been here for a reason. Sure enough there was a 15-minute light show on the river that started soon afterwards at 8pm.

By this time, we were tired and hungry and didn't want to walk too far. We eventually found a restaurant for dinner. Although this restaurant specialised in tea, we didn't order any tea. The wine was too expensive and so we just had water. Both of us ordered a wagyu beef burger.

The taxi rank outside the building was busy but very well organised. The line of taxis waiting was even longer than the line of people waiting. We were back in our hotel by about 9:30pm. The street next to the hotel was closed off and had become an open-air eatery. At the end of the street there was a band who had a German theme but had ocker Australian accents.

There is good WiFi reception throughout the Sofitel SO Hotel giving about 5Mb/s speeds in both directions. By comparison, my mini WiFi with the Singtel SIM gives me between 30Mb/s and 45Mb/s download speeds and about 20Mb/s upload.