It is always sad to leave my Aussie family in Australia. I usually hold it together until I pass through immigration and there is no going back. I am now at Changi Airport, Singapore, at lunchtime and about to catch the next plane to Heathrow, London. I will lose 9 hours so arrive on the same day, not tomorrow.

At Sydney airport yesterday, Geoff and I settled down for a coffee by the picture windows (and our last friand –delicious almond cakes sold in Aussie cafes) to watch the majestic movement of aircraft to or away from their designated terminal bays. In the air they are powerful beasts taking docile/immobile/subservient human passengers elsewhere in the world. On the ground, they become docile/immobile/subservient and it is the humans’ turn to pull them along in vehicles and load them, fuel them, check them. Into view, from around the corner, came our gigantic A380 Airbus being towed into place. It is the largest double decker passenger aircraft in the world, seats 850 passengers and weighs a whopping 1.2 million pounds.

It is a curious fact that whilst on board – unless you are a neurotic flyer – you manage to switch off to the fact that you are thousands of miles above the earth, moving at great speed and in a freezing temperature.

Rarely do you dwell on the fact that you are whizzing through the heavens like an angel – through clouds that great artists like Michelangelo would have given his back teeth to see at close range. Instead, most of the time, you pull down the shutters and watch movies, or kip. The moving map tells you that you are going over places that you have never heard of, will never visit, all those ‘stans after India – Tajikistan/Uzbekistan/Turkmenistan – before crossing the romantic inland sea, the Caspian into the familiar territory of Europe.

Last night we checked into the Fullerton Hotel (the old, grand Post Office), right on Marina Bay, overlooking the most impressive development of a water space, in terms of breadth of vision and alacrity of build. The Marina Bay Sands is a 2,561 roomed hotel in three tall towers with a skypark perched on top like a floating boat. It also houses a casino, theatres, luxury shopping and restaurants. On the foreshore is the lotus like Arts/Science Museum. On the other side is the Merlion statue, with a lion’s head and a body of a fish, spewing out water from its mouth into the bay. It is the symbol of this young nation of a bit more than 50 years.

Geoff likes to eat the local dish, Nasi Goreng, on the terrace, rather than inside in the air conditioning and to watch the colourful movement at Clarke Quay. The hotel has a wonderful infinity pool looking over restored colonial buildings. I had a swim and decompressed. A little slice of paradise.

Paradise was shortlived. We were awoken at 2am by loud music. By 4am I worked out that it was from the room next door. We called the front desk and they sent the duty manager. The guest next door had checked out late the night before and had left the radio blaring. They gave us a complimentary limousine ride to the airport to make up for the disruption.

As we were leaving a cavalcade of motorbikes with flashing blue lights passed us. The driver told us it was the prime minister, Lee Hsien Loong, from the People’s Action Party. His father was the first PM from independence in 1959 to 1990. There are other political parties, but they never get voted in.

The chauffeur finally answered the question Geoff always asks the local taxi drivers. Where is Brizay Park – where he lived in 1955-1958? He told him that it was an affluent area with freehold bungalows about 9kms from downtown. Single abodes are rare in the CBD. The mystery solved.

Next stop London.