Flying North to travel South.

[OZDUCK]

We decided to go straight to CDG from Bordeaux. There are only a couple of direct trains a day that do this route. This was the most expensive long distance train we took and was also the worst. It was a TGV but must have been a very early one as it was pretty worn and not very comfortable. The A/C was virtually ineffective. It was a 36C day and it was no cooler than that inside the train.

It was just under a four hour trip as it stopped at a number of stations and did not run on the high speed line very often. It goes through Tours and near to Orleans. Then it loops around Paris via Disneyland and CDG and eventually terminates in Lille. The TGV to Paris can do the trip in just over 2 hours. There had been no English announcements on the train until we got to the Disneyland station and then some announcements were made in perfect English. The train was always pretty busy but for the 20 or so minutes between Disneyland and CDG it was packed.

The legroom was very poor especially considering this was First Class.



This seat was occupied by a youngish guy who spent an hour on his phone pleading with someone not break up with him. Lots of tears and sobbing - not very comfortable to listen to him. However by the time he got off he seemed cheerful again and had apparently won them back again.





Some views on the way

Angouleme



The TGV's have a few windows that are kept clear of transfers etc that block the views. You can see CDG through this one.



Crossing the Loire in Tours



The white pylon is for the new cable car system being built in the S.E of Paris. It will be part of the public transit system and connects to the Metro

The first cable car in the Île-de-France region of Paris is nearing completion - Urban Transport Magazine

Flying over a motorway, a railway line and a park to school, work or the station at a height of over 50 metres? This will soon be a reality between Créteil and Limeil-Brévannes in the south-east of Paris. With the construction of the first urban cable car in the entire Paris conurbation...

www.urban-transport-magazine.com

 

[OZDUCK]

We used the Geographotel nearby CDG. It is one of a number of close-by hotels that offer a free shuttle service and are much cheaper than the hotels at CDG. However I would not recommend this one. The shuttle bus was a bit of a rattletrap and too small. We had to wait for the next pickup - only about 30 minutes - as it was full the first time around. The hotel is very clean, fairly modern and the staff were friendly. However the room we had was incredibly small. Far smaller than places like a Holiday Inn Express. You had to pretty much open the bathroom door to dry yourself after a shower. The bed, which was admittedly comfortable, almost touched the walls on either side. The only place we could put our suitcases was on the floor blocking the door. The A/C wasn't working because the date to switch it on hadn't been reached is not the first time we ran across this, regardless of the outside temperature. At least we could open the windows.

The hotel - the height of the plane gives you an idea how close to CDG it was. The perimeter fence was probably only a km away in a straight line but with the convoluted layout of the roads around CDG it was about a 7 km trip.



The breakfast did actually look to be good value but we were able to eat in the airport lounge so didn't try it.

The hotel is in the small village of Le Mesnil-Amelot. It is a very well tended place with several food options. We just had some basic Lebanese food. There is a very nice little park were we sat and had our take-away.





We took the shuttle back to CDG at about 0600. The passport check was quick but the security check was chaotic. I thought it was the worst I had experienced until we went out of Berlin a few weeks ago. That wasn't chaotic just glacially slow and understaffed.

Etihad uses the Paul Maxence by Extime lounge airside in Terminal 1. It was very quite at this time of day. The staff were friendly and the food choices pretty good. One poor staff member was harangued by an American woman because they didn't have US style granola. There was also a
boarding call for our flight.





The Etihad A380 has not had a cabin refresh for a number of years but it was still very comfortable



Once we were airborne my view was mostly of the wing



An iconic plane



My wife did get a few nice photos from her seat





I assume that our plane had either hit a bird or an extremely large insect when it landed in Paris. There was blood splatter over the lens of the tail camera

 

[OZDUCK]

This flight was the only one were the cabin staff I interacted with really seemed to be happy on board. The others ranged from ok to completely disengaged.





The biryani was alright without being special



We arrived in Abu Dhabi a day before the US bombed the Iranian nuclear sites but flight diversions were already in place.







Arrival

 

[OZDUCK]

It was all a bit shambolic on the ground again. Because of the diversion we were about a 90 minutes behind schedule and our next flight to Singapore was being shown as 'Go to gate'. We did so but once we got there we were told that thee would be at least a 35 minute delay. It was suggested that we go to the J lounge as our flight could be boarded directly from the lounge. We went there but it was all a bit uncoordinated there as well. We eventually found what we thought was the lounge gate but no staff or signs were around. An Australian couple were sitting nearby and they told us that we were in the right place and that supposedly the gate would open in about 15 minutes. This never happened and the poor couple spent the next hour reassuring lost looking pax that they were at the right spot. Staff wandered around now and again to say it would be 10 minutes more - about 4 times. Because of this uncertainty we didn't get a chance to have a good look at the lounge - for the second time.

Most of the photos I took on this flight have somehow disappeared from my phone. My wife was starting to feel unwell again - not helped by 5 hours of turbulence over the Bay of Bengal so she only took a few photos. We skirted around a huge thunderstorm near the east coast of India and got nicely shaken up. From then to Singapore we kept passing through cloud tops for bit of wobbling around and some rain. There were often ice flakes on the tail camera.

The crew on this flight just went through the motions and I thought that they were very lax about safety concerns. The man opposite to my wife had his seat reclined during take-off and the guy next to me was using his laptop held in his lap during both take-off and landing. The cabin was barely cleaned up for landing and the were things like coats and paper bags on top of the partitions between seats.





The sweet potato, coconut and ginger soup was lovely



Seabass Mashwi. The sauce was nice but I didn't like the fish itself.



Warm treacle pudding - it was also excellent. So a 2 out of 3 strike rate



My wife didn't have a meal on this leg and service was often suspended due to turbulence.

A hint of sunrise.

 

[OZDUCK]

We had a one night stopover in Singapore arriving late in the morning and went to bed as soon as we booked into the Village Hotel Changi. My wife was still not ready to face food so I just had a quick basic meal at the markets.

I did manage to get in a quick swim and do some plane spotting from the rooftop pool.



The next morning we caught the early free shuttle bus to the Airport and had access to the Plaza Premium Lounge in Terminal 1. It was actually very pleasant and we spent a couple of hours there.



Good airside views - with an Etihad flight departing



I had some freshly prepared chicken rice which was quite tasty



The only problem with the lounge was that it was as far away from the gate for our Scoot flight as possible.

The reason we keep using ScootPlus. Plenty of leg and shoulder room. I am not paying around $3,600 each for J Per/Sin. The cabin crew were again excellent pleasant to deal with and happy to oblige - within of course the strictures of a Low Cost Carrier. And unlike Etihad crew they were extremely proactive in safety matters.



Take-off scenes very familiar to anyone who has flown through Changi

My wife was still not eating but was otherwise feeling a little better. Similar to our flight in SQ earlier this year the cabin was prepared for landing very early and the Captain warned us that fairly strong turbulence had been reported around Perth Airport. Luckily, even though we could see black clouds and rain bursts around us we slipped in nicely between them with very little bouncing. We must have just missed some heavy rain as the runway was extremely wet.

My wife got a couple of good photos of central Perth on very late final approach





Then we caught the free Long Term Car Park bus to pick up our car. Of late it has been cheaper and more convenient to park the car at Perth Airport for a month than to use a Taxi or Uber. Our 2005 Statesman is usually easy to pick out among the multitude of FIFO 4WD's parked there.



And that is the end of this TR whose writing has been interrupted by our Poland trip.

We enjoyed the south of France very much and didn't really regret missing out on Paris. Our favourite spot was probably Arles. Nice and compact, easy to walk around and with lots to see. Also much less crowded than some of the other cities. At night it was great to wander around virtually empty streets. The castle at Carcassonne was also very memorable. SNCF proved far more reliable than D Bahn has been of late. The only delays we experienced were due to problems like a passenger falling ill and requiring urgent medical treatment and a wildfire by the tracks requiring detours. Most of the trains, with the notable exception of the last one, were pretty comfortable if a little outdated in the 'deep south'.

Having a car may have been better but I am now, at 71, becoming a bit cautious about driving in left had drive countries and especially through the tight city roads we saw. I was sad that we missed out on the Pont de Gard Roman bridge and a car would have made a visit more practicable.

Etihad was a mixture. To me it seems that they are still recovering from the Covid interruption and their cabin crew need more training and experience. The planes were comfortable enough and the food good on the whole.