Blogs from Boat Quay, Singapore, Asia

We are moored for two days in Singapore. Here are some facts about Singapore. In addition to its main island, the nation of Singapore includes 63 additional islands, most of which are uninhabited.Singapore is among the 20 smallest countries in the world, with a total land area of only 682.7 square kilometers. The United States is about 15,000 times biggerSingapore is one of only three surviving city-states in the world. The other two are Monaco and the Vatican City. The electronic landing cards (required by anyone going ashore) have been causing much trouble. Largely because people didn’t follow instructions and partially complete them before embarking. The result has been massive queues seeking help. Happily we followed instructions and things went easily. On entering the terminal we were waved through to one of the checking positions quickly ... read more

Arriving in Singapore was a breeze, as usual, although AirAsia hadn’t bothered to give out landing cards so we all had to do this in the landing hall. Immigration took 5 minutes and our bags were out in a trice. I changed some money in one of the normal exchange places as the rate was identical to on the xe app and so the same as my bank. They didn’t need to see my passport. Then I got the transfer bus from T4 to T2 to get the MRT, topping up my EZ-link cards for Gill and I. As we had left Langkawi on a half empty plane 20 minutes early I was at the hotel by 1pm. On the MRT only about 10% were wearing masks, but the Chinatown stop, usually really busy, was very ... read more

Plan for 2020 - London- Singapore - Krabi/Ao-Nang - Ko Lanta - Ko Muk - Ko Lipe - Langkawi - meet Gill back in Singapore - Melaka - KL - Penang - Singapore and home. Time to be off again, having hung on until November to see if I got any work, didn’t, so cheered myself up a LOT by booking a flight to Singapore, coming back on March 6th. The cheapest flight was Royal Brunei, but wasn’t prepared to compromise myself by putting money into that homophobic economy, and couldn’t face either a long stopover somewhere in China so BA it was, booking in December, 4 months later than last year and much more expensive. The price looks OK but now hold baggage needs to be added separately, a sneaky trick. Their seat selection prices ... read more

4th visit here, still finding lovely new things to do! After Gill came through off her flight we got a taxi from the rank as we couldn’t work out where the Grabs were allowed to pick up and didn’t want to not be able to find the driver. The taxi we did get went a longer route round to get to the hotel, but it cost 22SGD, so not too much more. A Grab would have been 18. 3rd time at the Holiday Inn Express, Clarke Quay. We are so over the walk from the MRT now, next time we’ll go to the Quay Hotel I stayed in a month ago. Gill was raring to go straight out so we walked along Boat Quay to the Merlion, took some pics, then went to the smart Fullerton ... read more

(Cj writes): This is the fourth time we’ve been to Singapore, and our third joint trip (I met Nik and Solli here for a fun-filled week last June, and Steve came years ago when it was an astonishingly exotic destination). Yet we’ve managed to go to some new places as well as old haunts. Old haunts: Chinatown and Clarke Quay (aka ‘Tourist Central’). New discoveries: Kampong Glam and Little India (which smells like Rajasthan as soon as you set foot there) and Sim Lim Square, actually a tower block crammed to the gunnels with shiny tech shops. SC - we also managed to get up to the top of the iconic Marina Bay Sands hotel. A stunning observation deck we we watche the sun go down and the the Marina Bay light show from above. Similarly ... read more