Welcome to my Blog. My name is Neil and I have been living in Milton Keynes UK since the 4th August 2026.
I lived in the Armenia, Latvia and China.
I am a teacher of Geography and English.
I am married to Lena who is my soulmate and best friend.We also have a son Robert.
As you can tell from the Blog's name I am Scottish although I was born in London.
My Blog will be for sharing my thoughts on anything that takes my fancy. Please feel free to comment.
Yesterday was our first full day in Rawai at the Resort Happy Elephant and we had a very lazy day.
Apart from a short walk to find an ATM and a visit to a supermarket we never even left the resort.
It was a sitting by the pool day, swimming and drinking beer and cocktails kind of a day.
Lunch and Dinner were both really cheap. In fact we had two meals, beer and cocktails, fruit, ice creams, notebooks and colouring pencils and all we spent was no more than €50.
Hello Gentle Readers. I am writing this post from beside our swimming pool at the Happy Elephant Resort in Rawai, Phuket, Thailand.
Jealous yet?
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This post however is not about today its about yesterday and our journey from the Fragrance Hotel in Singapore to our hotel in Thailand.
Our flight was due to leave at 14.40 so we left the hotel in Singapore at 11:00 and took the short metro ride to the Changi Airport.
Check in was relatively smooth and we saw some cool things.
Hello, Hello Kitty
Moose visits Changi Airports floaty raindrops.
We had a Burger King for lunch and made our way leisurely to the gate. At 1.24 a South Korean fighter jet, which was taking part in an Air Show, skidded off the runway and crashed. It caugjt fire and although no one was seriously hurt the runway was closed.
Our flight was delayed and 2 hours later than planned we boardef flight 3K535 for Phuket.
Unfortunately however the Airline Jetstar allowed all the passengers to leave the boarding area. We were supposed to take off at 17.30 but because 8 people were not back on time our flight was bumped back. So we sat on the plane for nearly 3 hours before it took off.
This means our 90 minute flight became an excrutiating 7 hours. At least Robert got to visit the cockpit.
We eventually landed in Phuket about 8 local time and then had to face the rugby scrum that was immigration.
Lena and Robert had to get visa on arrival but the entire process was laughable. We filled in forms, handed over photos and €112 and were basixally treated like cattle. Chinese people were pushing and it was not very well organised.
I genuinely think that this visa system is just a scam to charge tourists. I watched the guy checking the forms and he didnt even look at them. I was worried because I had not signed Robert's form. But it didnt matter because all that happened were their passports were just dumped on the counter. Luckily I saw them before someone else took them.
It seems to me that Security of Thailand's border means nothing compared to making cash.
We were really worried that because the flight was so badly delayed our driver would be gone. Luckily he was there and it took about an hour to get to Rawai.
We arrived at the hotel to find reception empty and we were really worried we had missed our booking. Check in officially finished at 7pm.
I found a worker though and we were able to get our room.
I am annoyed with a few people. The Korean pilot, Thailand immigration and the people who kept us waiting in Singapore. I am most disappointed however with Jetstar as they should have taken better care of the passengers in their care.
After a very nice lunch at a restaurant in the Gardens by the Bay we walked back towards the city to go to the Science Art museum.
On the way we got some incredible views of the Gardens and the Marina Hotel which is one of the most unusual buildings I have ever seen.
The three towers are impressive enough but the banana shaped top section with its trees make this one of the must see sights of Singapore.
We had to walk through the hotel to get to the Science Art museum and the inside is pretty cool too.
The Science Art museum is in a lotus shaped building which in itself is a work of art.
It was the interior we wanted to see however as we had heard amazing things about it. The best thing was the Crystal Universe.
Robert in the Crystal Universe
Another cool thing was a place where you colour in a picture, scan it and your picture is added to a moving wall digitally.
Lena's and my pictures
and on the wall
We also took Robert to the living canvas floor display, where you walk on a digital display and your footprints change the view. In this case we were walking in the ocean and little fish would follow our steps.
We had some very tasty dumplings and headed back to the Gardens by the Bay for the grand finale.
The huge tree like structures which are the centrepiece of the area are topped with solar power generators and every evening there is a spectacular light show.
Apoloogies for not including our video but this is basically what we saw.
Our only full day in Singapore Gentle Readers was full and busy.
We awoke and had breakfast at the cafe downstairs. Robert spilled soy sauce all over his shirt...oh how we laughed...not.
We arranged an Uber to take us to the Gardens by the Bay which is probably Singapores number 1 tourist attraction.
Gardens by the Bay
Our plan was to visit the Flower dome, the Cloud Forest and do the Sky walk. Unfortunately the Sky walk was closed for maintenance but because it was so windy it was probably just as well.
The very impressive Marina Bay Hotel
The Flower dome was filled with flowers and plants from all over the world and lots of other cool stuff.
Winnie and Piglet
The Cloud Forest dome was amazing and much more spectacular. It is a recreation of a rainforest biome. It has a waterfall whichconstantly recycles the water and the water vapour rises up creating a perfect model of the water cycle.
The plants were spectacular and the lay out of the dome was amazing. As a geography teacher I loved it.
We went for lunch after and I will tell the rest of the tale in my next post.
Hello Gentle Readers, here for you are my fun filled facts about this tiny city state.
1. Singapore is a very polite country where people have good manners. The government even train parents how to teach their children good manners. Maybe a few other countries could learn from their example.
2. Singaporeans are the fastest pedestrians in the world.
3. Chewing gum is banned in Singapore unless you have a doctors note.
4. Car owners have to pay 1.5 times the value of their car as tax to the government.
5. The maximum height of any building is 280m. There are currently 3 buildings of that height in the city.
6. Elevators in Singapore have built in urine detectors that will lock the doors until the police arrive.
7. Singapore is made up of 63 different islands.
8. The symbol of Singapore is the Merlion...half lion half fish.
9. The originalname of Singapore was Temesek which means 'Sea town'.
10. Although number 190 on thelistof countries by size, Singapore is number 1 when it comes to paying its leader. The Prime Minister has a salary of $1.7 million.
Hey Gentle Readers.We are on our travels again and this time we are in the City State of Singapore.
Singapore is somewhere I have always wanted to visit. I remember watching TV shows and movies set in Singapore. For many British people Singapore represents everything that was good about the British Empire but also everything that was bad.
The Singapore Flag (present)
Singapore flag (1946-1959)
There are 3 City States on our planet in the 21st century and now we have come here we only have 1 left to visit, Monaco. The other city state we visited was Vatican city.
Day 1 was very quiet. Our flight left Guangzhou at 3.45 in the morning so we were all pretty tired. We couldnt check into our hotel room until 3pm so we went and sat by the riverside to chill.
