THEN: S$74.00 Flight from Phuket to Singapore 600B Taxi to Airport 500B Departure tax

And here I thought I was getting a good deal on a flight. ‘Only about 1800B’, I thought, ‘that’s only 700B more than the bus, and that takes 18hr or so.’ Well it really cost me 1800 more than taking the bus, all because of an expensive taxi and, as the LP calls it, a ‘cheeky departure tax’. Other snags today: my taxi was waiting at the wrong place, so I left 30 minutes later than planned, but it just made me nervous, not late. I had to leave my swiss army knife at the counter. On the way back from Vietnam they simply checked it in an envelope, but they wouldn’t do it this time (on Tiger Airways, a subsidiary of Singapore Airways, which I used to fly from Vietnam).

On the plus side, the flight is pretty much empty, and I get to sit in an exit row. Yay for leg room.

NOW: Okay the taxi was because it was too early to take the 200B airport shuttle. The departure tax is annoying, but its pretty standard practice and I DID read about it beforehand, it just slipped my mind. The swiss army knife could have been saved if I’d checked my bag, but I didn’t want to. Besides, it was a cheap knock off I’d bought for S$5.00. So I was really just being grumpy and exaggerating. I don’t want this journal to become a rant, so that’s partly why I included these NOW parts.