Day 4: Last Morning in Singapore & Travel to Krabi

December 23, 2024

Sadly, our stay in Singapore had to end sometime. We really enjoyed it and wished we had one more full day! Lucky for us, we had some time to kill in the morning to wander around a bit more before heading to the airport. And even luckier for us, having time in the morning meant another shot at the best breakfast in the world at our hotel!

After an amazing breakfast round 2, we decided to head back out to explore another mall nearby in search of souvenirs. We packed our stuff back into our gigantic suitcases (thank goodness for packing cubes) and headed towards the Jubilee Bridge, but not before taking a quick illicit dance break.

On the way back, we walked through another mall where we were unsuccessful in acquiring any souvenirs, save for a Kaya spread and a free sauce / dip that the cashier gave us because it was about to expire, which is good enough for us!

It was time to head to the airport, which I wanted to get to early— not because of a fear of long lines, but to check out The Jewel, which is another mall in the airport featuring the world's tallest indoor waterfall surrounded by an indoor rainforest! It ended up being a good call because there was a little bit of trouble checking our bags - we tried 3 separate self-bag drop machines with the help of an attendant who then sprinted with us over to a line with a short queue where someone else was able to help us.

After checking out The Jewel, which was totally worth it, we had yet another unsuccessful souvenir shopping excursion (sorry Dad, I wasn't about to buy a 2 pack of shot glasses for $30. We'll be connecting back through Singapore on our way home and will try again) and then headed to a lounge to blog before boarding our Scoot flight to Krabi.

The security process in Singapore is also worth noting. In order to get into the terminal, you don't have to do any sort of luggage screening. All you do is scan your boarding pass and let the machine take a picture of you, like a CLEAR lane except free, and then you're in! The only time they put your carry-ons through an X-ray machine is right at the gate, which you do an hour before your flight takes off. You do need to remove laptops from your bag, but they don't seem to care about having liquids in your water bottle at all (which Emily discovered by accident).

Scoot Airlines is the budget “little sibling” of Singapore Air, so it was definitely a different flying experience from our most recent flight, but still a step up from American budget airlines. One weird requirement they had was that you couldn’t wear headphones during takeoff or landing. Also, they called their flight attendants “Scooties” which Em loved.

We didn’t remember that we had chosen meals, but for some reason we were given the chicken and veggie options, which were much more similar to your typical airline food than Singapore Air’s fancy meals. We were seemingly the only people on the flight to have meals and the flight was so short that it wasn’t really necessary, but I was hungry so it was just as well. Em’s veg option included spaghetti with a pile of Italian seasoning and 2 potato-looking “falafel.” Yum!

We landed in Krabi where they loaded us into a long and unnecessary shuttle bus from the plane to customs. We were dropped off comically far from where the plane landed, even though there were no other planes parked nearby and seemingly plenty of room to have pulled the plane much closer.

Customs was easy, as was finding our bags and the driver to our hotel. It was around an hour to the hotel, but when we arrived the whole travel day instantly became an afterthought. The view from the lobby at Banyan Tree Krabi is absolutely stunning. You walk in and have an unobstructed view of the sea with an infinity pool cascading water down an open staircase.

We were greeted with a refreshing fruit drink and given a tour of the property and then our room. Much like the lobby, the view from our room is a panoramic view of the sea and the little islands popping out of the water in the distance. We even have our own private pool!

We had a little time to relax before our dinner at The Bird’s Nest, which is a restaurant on the property with only 3 tables that are actually nest-like, perched on tree branches. In order to get to the restaurant, we took a diagonal elevator up what is essentially one short flight of stairs, where one of the only two servers for the restaurant greeted us, led us to our table, and took several pre-meal pics of us in the trees.

The meal itself was pretty good - we had preselected our meal, the “Symphony of the Seas” which consisted of a lemongrass salad and a steamed bun with chicken, a Thai soup with sea bass that was delicious but VERY spicy, a panang curry with lobster as the main, and a butter cake with rose jelly and lime sorbet for dessert.