Leg 3 - The Prequel

I'm writing this now from the air-conditioned comfort of a hotel room in Singapore, it's hot outside. Worse than that though, it's really, really humid.. (and the internet is a bit dodgy)

Soon enough from the comfort of an Airside pub at Heathrow, we were called for boarding, and got the first glimpse of the A380, which would carry us to Singapore. I have to say, i'm not only impressed with the size of it, but how quiet it was. The service from Singapore Air was also fantastic, and the food was great.

Half asleep, and 7 hours ahead of where my stomach was telling me I should be, we emerged out of the air conditioned comfort of Singapore airport (after catching up with Mark, who had raced ahead through immigration).

We dropped our bags off at the hotel - check in was not open for another 6 hours - and we went off to the Lao embassy to sort out some Visas. Anna, Steve, Pete and Alex had to make a quick exit to get some more passport photos under the stairs in a hairdressers in the next-door shopping complex.

An hour later, we were all sorted, and off to the nearest Starbucks for some caffine and WiFi. We updated the Map on the site, and looked at how well Leg 3 were progressing, and emails were sent back home to inform the support team about our progress.

Coffee downed, we used the MRT (or underground in London speak) to get to Sim-Lim tower, which is a bit like Tottenham court road, but inside (in the air-conditioning - very important), and 6 floors of it. Malcolm checked out the pricing on some intergalactic Canon lens, Anna bought a lens protector for her camcorder, and Charlie bought some Nintendo thing. Alex saw somebody demoing PS3 using GRID, which he thought was brilliant, although everybody else was a bit bemused (including the shopkeeper).

Having had enough of flashing lights and loud noises, we had lunch in a restaurant in the department store next door, which was very good. We then caught the bus back to the Hotel, where we gave ourselves the first chance to have a relax.

After a quick wash and freshen, we went out to China town for dinner, which was excellent, and then a walk back to the hotel, before everybody fell asleep - a very long day

Today we'll have a chance for a little sightseeing, before the trip to Hanoi tomorrow.