16 + 16 = Suck and 32

​What’s worse than a 16-hours flight?  For me it’s a 16-hour flight followed by a 15-hour layover.  

The fifteen wouldn’t be so bad, except of two facts.  One I did not sleep a wink on the plane, which is pretty normal for me.  Partly because when I fly I suffer from un-yielding leg pain which is only relieved through constant shaking and movement of my legs.  Secondly, if I do start to drift off any unexpected sound, bump or shift in my position causes me to jolt into sudden state of full awareness filled with adrenaline and freezing fear…and I mean every time. Luckily for me, a 400 plus ton flying metal tub full of human shaped meat sacks never experiences unexpected sounds or bumps.  

We were also chasing the sun, so behind the window blind was a bright, actually blinding sun. And of course my window blind had a small crack in it that shined sunlight directly into my face. 

But the fifteen on the ground…that seems like a good amount of time to maybe explore Singapore.  Everything I’ve heard is that it is an amazing city and I have seen Crazy Rich Asian…I think that is also the title of a movie (yes Elsa, I know, you knew I was going to say that). 

Although exploring a city by myself is something I would never do, I was going to but changed my mind for two reasons. One, after my whole visa problem I was fearful of not being allowed to get on my next flight if I left the airport, more importantly/logically the timing just wasn’t there.  With the plane arriving at 5:30 pmlocal time, but wouldn’t have been out in the city until around 7:00pm, I didn’t think I would be able to see much.  Most of the layover was during at night and I would have to be back at the airport before 8:00am.  Not something I was willing to risk. 

Of all the airports I’ve been stuck in, Singapore are port is one of the largest and has some nice amenities.  There are three full on hotels on the airside of the airport, a 24-hour free movie theater, multiple pay-shower locations, and seemingly a thousand eating and retail locations.  So, I would not be lacking in things to do…if I chose to…proudly I can say I chose not to.  Wandering between the four terminals, looking at the artistic installations and scouting a place I would be able to lay down and possible sleep took up much of the first three or four hours of my time.  

This airport has several sleeping lounges (open spaces with a bunch of reclined lounge chairs) which is where I decided to settle in.  Problem is, even though the chairs were in a reclined position, I think my body was designed for a different shape.  There was no position that I could get into that was comfortable enough to fall asleep in.  I’m shaped like a snickers bar with the width of a full size but the length of a fun size…my kids say its more choad like, what ever that means.  The curves in the chairs did not match the natural bends of my body. Yes, I could have moved and found another location that was more appropriate for my make and model, but I fell in to a cycle of possessive irrationality and fear that there wouldn’t be any other options.  

One thing that did kind of work was when I turned upside down.  The curves still didn’t fit but with the blood rushing to my head, when I turned right side up, I go dizzy and sort of felt like I could sleep, but that didn’t last long. 

Bu the time I gave up, and decided to move, my flight would be boarding in three hours and sleep was again off the table.  That makes roughly thirty-five hours of being awake and did not see sleep coming until I would reach my lodging. 

As I boarded the plane to Seim Reap, I was well aware of the make of my fellow passengers…mostly Khmer.  That was neat. 

To round out this dribble, my impression of the Singapore airport…a very large very nice airport…but they had too many robots rolling around on their own. 

A robo-wheel chair searching for some thing or someone to wheel around 

An overly cute I think vacuum robot but I’m not sure.