My wife and I 'stopped over' at Singapore whilst we were en route to visit our eldest son and his wife in Melbourne, Australia.
We waited for our luggage, which included my wheelchair, to appear on the airport's conveyor belt. Some time passed with no sign of my wheelchair. The aircraft was prevented from taking off until the airline staff found my elusive wheelchair. After all, we could not allow another aircraft to take my precious wheelchair to some other destination! They eventually found it and we then spent a few very pleasant days in Singapore.
We stayed at the Weston Stamford Hotel, a beautiful circular building with 72 floors. It was the highest building in Asia at that time. We had arrived at 2am and were very tired after our 20 hour, 6,807 mile flight. We went straight to bed, desperately wanting a good night's sleep (I can never sleep in an aircraft).
But at 6am we were woken by a lady enquiring if we would like to go on a free bus ride to a shopping centre followed by a visit to the infamous Chang Hei prison. We decided to accept the invitation, although an extra couple of hours sleep would have been apprecaited!
Singapore is a very interesting place. At the time of our visit they had some very strict laws. For example, chewing gum was not allowed. They had corporal and capital punishment, in particular for drug smuggling.
It was a beautiful island, spotlessly clean and very pro-British. English was the dominant language, and all the road signs were in English. The people were very polite and friendly, and nothing was too much trouble for them including assisting disabled folk.
