There were only 10 passengers on the flight from London to Singapore on Sept 10, out of a capacity of 336.

I arrived at Changi Airport the next day and was shepherded towards an immigration area that was unrecognisable, the concourse filled with immigration officers instead of passengers, with too little to do.

Having been processed, I was given a yellow sticker as signs and barriers guided me towards a coach. Everyone was immensely helpful, offering to carry my luggage, but nobody would say anything when I asked where we were going.

Even the driver kept schtum. I took a good look at my fellow passengers - mostly maids and work permit holders.

I had expected the government-designated hotels to be near the airport. Once we were comfortably past East Coast, I started daydreaming how wonderful it would be if it was the Shangri-La Hotel at Orange Grove Road.

Few Singapore hotels have balconies and Shangri-La is one of them. If we were not allowed out of our rooms, a balcony could make the difference for me between claustrophobia and sanity.

When the coach entered Tanjong Pagar, I began to feel excitement. Where were we going? After Telok Blangah, signs for Sentosa appeared. The coach headed towards Shangri-La's Rasa Sentosa Resort & Spa. I rubbed my jet-lagged eyes to make sure it wasn't a dream. Never had I been on a journey of such wonder, hope and relief.

I asked nicely if I could have a room with a sea view. The efficient young receptionist said that the sea-view rooms had been mothballed; we would all be put in standard rooms and were to be grateful for that (those were not her words, but my impression).

My standard room was ginormous, with a balcony, a view of the forest and, if I craned my neck, the sea. I was overjoyed. I could live here.

I spoke too soon. The food, if you could call what was left outside your room three times a day, food. I have never in all my life eaten such awful, unrecognisable gloop, what appeared to be meat coated in a chewy rubbery substance. The rice was brittle, vegetables alternated between bak choy and broccoli, both of which I dislike. How wrong can you get with breakfast? Eggs are inherently tasty and don't need meddling with. I took a bite of a yellow block that passed as scrambled eggs and spat it out. It was floury. It tasted of desperation.

At the time, I wondered how a five-star hotel could have such a lousy kitchen. I began to plot to go on a food strike to lose weight. Then a friend told me it was catered fare whichever hotel you were sent to.

I studied the hotel menu. Five times the price of my hawker favourites. Even at 30 per cent off for quarantine guests, it seemed excessive: char kway teow, $25; satay, $22; Asian breakfast, $32.

I gingerly ordered satay - the best I ever tasted in my life. Meat, not only tender but also juicy, the portion generous and, with the discount, excellent value for money.

Every other local dish was fabulous and I must give the chef credit for an out-of-this-world nasi lemak. The rice was amazing, fragrant and fluffy and so moreish, it could have been a dish in itself. This experience I repeated several times and vowed to come back for, upon release.

Once the food issue was solved, time flew. I had no longing to face the masked world, to talk through a barrier, to wonder if the wearers were frowning or smiling. I made sure I spoke to friends or family at least once a day, to air the vocal cords.

There was no pining about "when I am out, I'm going to do this and that". I had decided to use the time fruitfully, to improve myself in two major ways: lose weight and exercise mind and body. Losing weight went out of the window the moment I tasted that heavenly satay and nasi lemak.

I decided to learn taiji. I found an excellent website and spent three hours a day struggling with the movements.

It is hard to learn physical movement online. The teacher's left is my right and vice versa. Thankfully, I got hooked about the time I was about to give up. The day I learnt all 24 steps, I ordered a glass of sparkling wine to celebrate. I surely would have given it up in the free world of other distractions.

I finished reading the three books I had, cover to cover, a satisfying feeling of completion, where once I had a tendency to browse.

I learnt poems by heart. I brushed up on Chinese; a Beijing professor and I exchanged Chinese and English lessons via the magical medium of Skype.

There was television, a luxury as I have never owned one, which makes it a treat when I am on holiday, or quarantine. I watched the news twice a day to accompany lunch and dinner, but frankly there was no time for movies.

It was lush outside my room, dead quiet, no man-made noises, just the sweet song of birds and the collective rasps and percussive music of insects. If I made this sound like paradise, it was.

There was a tiny laundry allowance which covers one item a day if you don't want to pay any excess. My T-shirts came back smelling of cheap-smelling softener, which took about 10 soaks in the posh hand soap provided by the hotel to remove. That took up a lot of my time and henceforth I did my own laundry and dried it on the balcony.

During the 15 days, Immigration and Checkpoints Authority officials spot-checked in person three times, video-called twice and voice-called once. The hotel called daily for my body temperature. They did their jobs professionally, with courtesy and sensitivity, even though I sometimes responded irritably, when they had woken me from deep slumber.

We reported for our swab test on Day 11, at the hotel lobby, the only time we were allowed out of our rooms. It was not pleasant to have a thing shoved up your nose, but, hey ho, I survived and tested negative.

I don't know how I would have coped in a small room with no balcony and the delightful air of Sentosa, and without the space to do taiji, but it is possible to tap the self-discipline that enforced isolation gifts you. I had a choice, to allow time to drag and drown in misery, or to take the opportunity to discipline mind and body.

The hotel gave us a pleasant experience, hats off to the staff, but it certainly was no holiday. It is a resort hotel, but the resort part of it was shuttered. Perhaps it would have been cruel to tease us with a beach, sea or pool view.

Would I repeat the experience? No, I like people too much and have no intention of turning into a hermit.

•Low Kar Tiang is a retired Singaporean teacher, aged 64, who left for Britain in March for a holiday and made it back here only on Sept 11, after enduring flight cancellations, lockdowns and ever-changing travel advisories.