Planes, Trains and Hotels
If I was
going to make attending Malaya Madness a reality, I needed to minimise costs as much as possible, so it was off to a
budget carrier for my flights and some research into cheap lodgings while in
Singapore.
As far as
flying goes, there is no way I wanted to use Ryan Air or Jetstar (Qantas’
budget carrier offshoot). I’d much rather fly with a regional carrier who was based out of
Singapore and thus had planes returning there constantly.
I briefly
dallied with Singapore Airlines and Cathay-Pacific but couldn’t find a
reasonable priced ticket to fit my austere budget. However Scoot Air is
Singapore Airlines’ budget flagged carrier and they were offering a return
ticket for AUD $450! A win for the ASL junkie!
Scoot had
to be better than the only alternative Jetstar, who were getting a lot of very
negative press online and in the domestic media at the time. As it turned out I
made the right choice as the not only was the outbound light with Scoot more
comfortable than many of my Qantas flights across the Tasman, but also it left the
ancient United/Qantas 747-400 I’d flown to ASLOK XXV well behind.
Now that
the flight was booked and paid for, it was just a matter of finding a place to
stay. This could have been a bit of mission, but after viewing a few places on
Trip Advisor and reading some reviews, the choice was very simple. I’d budgeted
for around $100AUD per night at most, and I was having no problem finding
places. When I first pondered attending, I’d done a cursory search online and
one place stood out as very new, very distinctive and looked to be great value
for money.
Many years
ago I first heard of “Coffin” style accommodation in FASA’s Shadowrun RPG, and
as I only needed a secure place to crash at night, all the expensive extras a
standard Hotel would offer just weren’t needed. So I booked my 4 nights at The
Pod. For less than SGD$50 per night, I ended up being very pleasantly surprised
at the value I received.
The kicker was that the beds were good quality, security
was excellent given the dorm style accommodation and the location was central
enough to the interesting parts of Singapore and access to the MRT system was
within a short stroll.
So flights and accommodation were all sorted and in the event were great value for money.
Now that
the flight was booked and paid for, it was just a matter of finding a place to
stay. This could have been a bit of mission, but after viewing a few places on
Trip Advisor and reading some reviews, the choice was very simple. I’d budgeted
for around $100AUD per night at most, and I was having no problem finding
places. When I first pondered attending, I’d done a cursory search online and
one place stood out as very new, very distinctive and looked to be great value
for money.Many years
ago I first heard of “Coffin” style accommodation in FASA’s Shadowrun RPG, and
as I only needed a secure place to crash at night, all the expensive extras a
standard Hotel would offer just weren’t needed. So I booked my 4 nights at The
Pod. For less than SGD$50 per night, I ended up being very pleasantly surprised
at the value I received. The kicker was that the beds were good quality, security
was excellent given the dorm style accommodation and the location was central
enough to the interesting parts of Singapore and access to the MRT system was
within a short stroll.
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