Well folks, it’s time finally to wrap up the full story of my South East Asia trip from late last year by detailing my journey from Langkawi to home via Singapore! It was going to be an interesting journey home and not 100% smooth sailing.

Firstly we had to make it to Singapore, overnight near the airport and then head home the next day on SCOOT. Our first flight was with Air Asia, this is the one flight I didn’t do a flight review on the vlog for!

We booked a hotel near the airport. The hotels at the airport are either solely for those in transit (which we weren’t) or way too expensive. As it was, at around $200USD a night, the Park Avenue Changi Hotel was the most expensive night of the entire trip, and actually maybe the single most expensive night of accommodation I’ve ever paid for. Check out my review.

The Air Asia flight was on time and landed at the new Terminal 4 at Changi Airport, which was a bit further away than the other terminals. It took us around 10 minutes in a GRAB – South East Asia’s answer to Uber which proved to be very useful on this trip, from the terminal to the hotel. It turned out there was a metro station almost there on the spot but I don’t think it connected to Terminal Four so we would have had to transfer from Terminal Four to Terminal One first by bus, so this worked out to be the quicker, more efficient choice.

All in all this was a decent 4-star hotel but it was very expensive. At the end of the day Singapore is not a city for cheap sleeps and it was near the airport. We just wanted a place that was a quick in and out for the next day, which is what we got. We made our way via the metro quickly the next morning to Changi Terminal One for our 11am flight with SCOOT direct to Melbourne.

SCOOT, like Air Asia, are a budget airline. SCOOT are Singapore based and are owned by Singapore Airlines. We were taking ‘SCOOTPlus’ which used to be called ‘SCOOTBiz’, for around $750AUD or $500USD it’s a pseudo-Business Class seat with all your extras included.

We were well early, maybe 730am at the airport (we are always super early) and had a good amount of time to relax and do some journaling. I’ve a bad habit of never quite finishing my trip diaries, leaving half a day unwritten and planning to finish it once home, but never getting around to it, but in this instance I was able to.

We made our way to the gate in good time – remember that Changi’s security check is at the gate rather than before immigration. Not my favourite way of doing it to be perfectly honest but c’est la vie, otherwise without a doubt one of the best airports in the world. But slowly shuffling through security to enter the gate area is always super slow.

Eleven o’clock approached, and then passed. Yes, we were facing a delay – due to a ‘technical issues’. It turned out a battery was flat and not charging, possibly for something in flight as those engines were turning fine as far as I could see through the window.

This delay turned into three hours. I am not usually concerned about delays, they are just a part of travel and with budget airlines such as SCOOT you can expect them, but three hours changed a lot at the other end. It meant getting in at 1230am in the morning instead of 930pm, by the time we were to get home it was more like 2am. I didn’t want to take a night flight, my wife prefers night flights so I will cop the blame on this.

SCOOT, to their credit, provided food such as chips and muffins for everyone and kept everyone informed. The flight itself was good, considering you are paying what you might pay for the same flight on Singapore Airlines Economy for this Business-ish class seat, it was reasonable value for a large seat, being able to stretch out and use my laptop with heaps of space. They included a short time of free Wi-Fi too, that kinda worked. Airlines still have a long way to go in perfecting on board Wi-Fi and I can’t imagine I would spend extra money for it with no guarantee it will actually work.

Thankfully at Melbourne we moved through immigration and bag collection quickly. We had a pick up planned but called from Singapore to tell Mum and Dad not to bother as we would be getting in so late, and so ended up taking an Uber which at that time of the very early morning was around $130AUD or $87USD, if you’ve ever wondered how much it costs in Melbourne. In all fairness we are south-east suburbs and the airport is north of the CBD, but still…

We were back home. Tired as, but safely in one peace. Thanks for following my review of this trip. Next on the agenda is probably my trip a few months ago through Japan and Korea. We’ll see I’m still working it out.

Take care wherever you are in the world! Thanks again for reading and… May the Journey Never End!