Singapore

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Singapore Airport must be the best in the world, certainly the best we've ever travelled through. It is clean, spacious and well run. Why other airports don't reach this standard is hard to understand. We have been to Singapore before so we knew how to fill our two days here. The Fragrance Hotel Selegie at the top end of Selegie Road had the smallest room we had stayed in all trip, apart from our trusty tent that is. Selegie Road is in the Little India part of the town and is manic, just like India. There was a festival on during our first day there, Thaipusam. Everyone was marching from one temple to another and the road was packed with people watching. Men were carrying decorations on their shoulders and when we went down to watch more closely we could see that their decorations were attached to their bodies by large fish hooks stuck through their skin. Some also had spikes stuck through their tongues and cheeks. A really weird sight. We once again had our obligatory Singapore Sling at Raffles. They aren't half expensive now! Boat Quay and Clarke Quay are still great places for people watching in the evening. Linda had picked up a leaflet at the airport which gave details of a round the town shuttle bus run by Singapore Airlines. It also had a shuttle bus running to Sentosa Island. If you are a 'Stopover Holiday' customer with the Airline the buses are free. If you are just flying with the Airline the buses are S$6.00 each for all day 'hop on, hop off' travel. Extremely good value compared to the normal tour buses of this type and a great way to tour the city. They are spoiling Sentosa Island now by over-commercialism. They are even building a Universal Studios Resort on the Island. Progress eh! The public transport system is excellent and we returned to the Airport on the underground system for S$1.90 each, compared to S$9.00 each on the shuttle bus and S$35.00 quoted to us for a taxi. Yet again our annoying 'pay as you go' mobiles failed to have a service here, as they did the majority of time we were in the US. Maybe we'll have better luck with them in Hong Kong. Despite our short length of time here, we both agree that we still like Singapore very much. Photos will be posted later.

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