Singapore alone
For the second year in a row, in September I have visited the Asian city-state of Singapore, popular with tourists from all over the world, located on islands in Southeast Asia, close to Malaysia and Indonesia.
In this post I want to talk about how to get a visa to Singapore on my own and how to get here from Russia and Thailand.
Some of my friends, when they learned that I decided to go to Singapore for the second time and for a whole week, asked me the same question: what should I do there a second time and for so long? In principle, the question is logical, given the size of this city-state, and the fact that usually many tourists have time to inspect everything in 3-4 days.
But, probably, I am an unusual tourist … Honestly, I don’t like trips like “Gallop across Europe” with running around along a clearly planned route. In 2016, when I came to Singapore for the first time, it was this trip that I had: I visited all popular places with friends, following the “minimum plan” of a classic Singapore tourist, made a lot of beautiful photos, bought an iPhone 7 just on sale and a lot of quality beautiful things.
In general, I liked everything, but there remains a slight regret that the 4 days spent in Singapore are somehow not enough. While running around from the sights to the sights, and there are a lot of them here, believe me, with my company I somehow could not make time for leisurely walks through the streets, little-known parks and shopping centers. So I again wanted to return to Singapore to live a life close to the life of ordinary Singaporeans.
Therefore, when I was planning a new trip to Asia for the next year, the question of visiting Singapore or not was no longer in front of me: I decided with my company how many days to go here. In the end – we went for a week (7 nights).
Since Singapore is only one of the points of our Asian trip, and in 2017 we went here for a week, we needed to get a visa. This is not difficult to do – the submission of documents is carried out exclusively in electronic form through one of the companies accredited by the Embassy of Singapore, which is very convenient for those who want to visit Singapore on their own.
How to get to Singapore
Singapore International Airport is the largest airline hub in Asia, so it’s not difficult to get here, it would be money. You can fly from Singapore Airlines direct flights from Russia, the travel time is 10 hours 30 minutes, the cost of tickets is from 36,000 rubles (if booked in advance) to 60,000 rubles. Aeroflot does not fly here.
Since Singapore was one of the points of our trip, we flew here directly from the Thai island of Koh Samui for 10,000 rubles (taken in advance). And we already flew back to Bangkok, from where we had a return flight of Aeroflot to Moscow.
Be careful when you book flights from Singapore to Bangkok – airlines fly to two different Bangkok airports: Suvarnabhumi Airport (BKK, flights to Russia depart from here) and Don Mueang International Airport (DMK).
Most often, Russians arrive in Singapore from Moscow, from Bangkok tickets cost from and back from 5,500 rubles, from Vietnam (Ho Chi Minh) to cost from 5,000 rubles back and forth, from Vietnam (Hanoi) from 7,000 rubles, from Dubai and Abu Dhabi tickets are expensive – from 30,000 rubles.
Singapore Airport is a frequent winner of various international competitions. In principle, I fully agree with this: the baggage is unloaded very quickly, you do not have time to get to the place of baggage receipt, and he is already lying and waiting for you; all airport services work smoothly and quickly, including passport control – they showed the passport, put their fingers on the fingerprint scanner – 1 minute, and passport control passed. The same is true back when leaving Singapore: it is not necessary to pass through the passport control with paper carriers so that a stamp on retirement is put, your fingerprints are enough.
