Day 2. Thursday 2 April.

The cabin crew on this leg of the journey were very quiet and hardly noticeable – but equally efficient.

Arrived in Istanbul and deplaning, immigration, ETIAS, and baggage pick up procedures. Once again all went very smoothly until we looked for transport to get to our hotel at Levent. The bus to there didn’t depart the airport for another hour and a quarter so we were persuaded to take a bus to Taksim from where we could catch the Metro. It wasn’t, of course, quite that simple. After about an hour we arrived at Taksim in the rain and the Metro nowhere to be seen.  Fortuitously an Uber driver turned up at that moment and we had a rather interesting discussion about how much it would cost us to get to our hotel. In the end he said he would do it for €17 and we said ‘let’s go’. He was was a card. Tried to teach us how to speak a number of words in Turkish all of which we failed but it was a bit like driving in a demolition derby, but no crashes! We joked about the state of the world – at one stage seeing the Trump Towers.

Arrived at the hotel, through security screening, and apparently looking lost in the lobby,  were taken in hand by a delightful young lady who arranged our room for us, explained everything and gave us a few more words in Turkish, particularly how to say thank you, and we settled in.

D then discovered that he’d neglected to pack enough undies, so part of our stretching walk was to a nearby shopping mall – T’s least favourite activity. There were two close by – the up market one, and the cheap one. We went into both – through security screening. Wandered around the cheap mall (actually not really cheap) and successfully accomplished mission, along with some snacks and beers. Obviously recognised, as we were waved through the security screening on return.

Days one and day two over. The trip proper has started, hopefully after a long sleep.

Day 1. Wednesday 1 April.

Taxi booked for 1230, so plenty of time to repack suitcases, clean floors, repack suitcases, scrub loos, repack….

D hadn’t received confirmation of the taxi booking so rang at 1130. All good – are you ready to go now? Yes. So a terrific ride from Harish (Harry) who was very chatty and ultra proud of his pristine taxi, meant that we could now wait at Canberra airport instead. Flight was uneventful – and we arrived with plenty of time to wait as the check in didn’t start for another three hours. Smooth when it happened – farewelled by the pandas, but not sure of the significance.

As we waited to board a woman nudged her way into the side of the queue: good technique – nonchalantly and gradually sneaking a few more positions along. But karma struck – when she got to the front of the line she was told to join a different one, and advised she ‘d be boarding last!

Flight to Singapore was comfortable – about eight hours then a couple of hours on the ground for refuelling. Just one complaint.  Although we were travelling at night – the plane having left at about 10:30 pm – it was very noisy and in particular the cabin staff chatted and rattled cutlery pretty much the whole flight. Otherwise, they were actually terrific and helpful. Next leg was 11 hours to Istanbul.