So-long Singapore

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NOTE: Sorry for typos and the lack of any detail and/or the fwe photos but weve only got a few minutes before we are off and this computer is ancient!

Hello Readers! It is here, the final blog! We know you have all been waiting for it with naited breath, so fight back the tears, lets get on with it...!

Our last night in KL was predictably brilliant. Yet again involving copius amounts of brilliant local food. This time Jonathan took us out to try the infamous fish head and pork ribs. The food was amazing and we even brought some of the herb mix to make the ribs when we get home. Best of all the restaurant was under a motorway flyover, great fun! When Jennifer joined us later around midnight/1 we went accross town (eating at that time seems almost normal now!) to find some noodles. Gave us the chance to see the area we would have been staying in if we hadnt have had access to the apartment, needless to say it wasnt as nice!

The first class train ride to Singapore was a joy. We had a huge comfy seat each which you could spin around so we were facing each other at the window. Awesome! The journey was intersected by a quick stop at the border for everyone to disembark (a pain with all the luggage) and go through immigration/customs before getting back on and carrying on into Singapore. Unlike the rest of Singapore the train station is out the way a bit so we had to grab a quick taxi across town to our hostel.

What a location for a hostel! We have been staying at the Cozy Corner Hostel which is directly opposite Bugis Junction Mall and MRT Station. This is bang smack where we would choose to be so its great. The station opposite lets us zip around the city on various underground lines and the Bugis mall is our favourite mall in town. It's a mall that is laid out like a real town but under glass, with streets and vendors etc but all air conditioned. Which is a big plus when its this hot and humid! There is also a busy foodcourt on the top floor which is where we have had most of our breakfasts and a few other snacks.

On our first full day we took an exploratory stroll around the colonial and harbourfront area near our hostel. The architecture in Singapore is incredible, definate the most amazing we have seen. The sky scrapers are literally that, and come in varying styles from modern glass pillars to our favourite the gothic 'batman' building on the corner. It actually looks like its been lifted from Gotham City and plonked here, I havent spotted him hanging around on the roof yet though. The city is spotlessly clean with very little pollution, with SERIOUS penalties for anybody breaking the stringent rules. Sar was eating some nuts on the MRT platform until we saw a sign that warned of a five hundred dollar fine for doing so!!! The colonial buildings though smaller are equally as impressive. The legendary Raffles Hotel is worthy of the hype and is a polished white example of colional splendour at its best. The uniformed Raj-style security guys are brilliant too, as is the court yard bar ambience. Not that we could afford a drink there! The Fullerton Hotel is also amazing, especially at night. Its a imposing grey squat building with hordes of modernday millionaires busy running in and shout shouting buy/sell dwn their mobiles. We took in the waterfront and opera house before getting completely lost doing the lonely planets walking tour. The whole of singapore is under re-development at the moment which means maps and guides are VERY hard to follow! That night we headed out to the the area known as Little India for dinner. Initially we were going to go for the bannan leaf apollo reccomended in the guidebook but we have a top travellers reccomendation here! The place virtually next door is a brilliant Kashmiri restaurant. The owner is incredibly friendly, the food a little exensive but out-of-this-world. The food is all traditional Kashmiri fare, with lots of Puppies wolfing it down (Puppies being Punjabi-Yuppies not small dogs!) We had some amazing tandoori dishes and a great hoemstyle curry and even pushed the boat out to desserts, Gulab Jammun and a new semolina dish we have never tried! We spent the evening walking around and stopped for a pint in the Prince of Wales pub (it is truly cosmopolitan here!). We even got to sit and watch some Jools Holland on the TV.

On our second day we decided to cross the water over to Sentosa Island. Sentosa is this huge mega-super resort island about half a mile off the coast of Singapore. Its linked by briges, cable cars etc but we took the monorail as it was quick and cheap. The island itself is mainly a collection of resorts but it does have some of Singapore big hitting attractions. We went over for the Underwater World. It wasnt as busy as we had feared inside and we had a great few hours looking at all the weird and wonderful creatures on show. The highlight is the underwater tunnel which has a conveyor belt type walkway inside it. Quite fun as you get to just stand there and look as you get taken around. They also had some huge prehistoric catfish type things and a few fish that we havent seen before and a big white thing that looked a bit like a manitee but is a bit different, cant rememeber the name but are VERY rare. They also have some seriously weird crabs on show, ie the decorator crab! All in all it was worth thr trip over even if we would say the one in Bangkok was a smidge better, still they both beat the sea life center! From the Underwater place we headed over to the dolphin lagoon. Not the first time we have seen dolphins, infact Sar was super happy as this was the FORTH time we have managed to do so since leaving home. We have seen wild dolphins in Cambodia and India as well as captive ones in Bali and now here! The dolphin lagoon was a pretty smart place for the dolphins to live and gave them plenty of space to mess around in a dolphin kind of way. The dolphins here are pink and pretty cool to look at, theyve also got long noses! The dolphin show itself lasted about half an hour and was really good, the dolphins were not made to do anything cruel and looked like they were having *a whale of a time* sorry couldnt resist! We even got to see them before the show, as we got there early. There were three dolphins which milled around in front of our seats and even kind of responded to our amateur hand signals from Bali. Everyone else looked puzzled! After zipping back accross the water we had some seafood down on the quayside esplanade area. I must say that the stereotypical night skyline view of the city from here was amazing. For a pretty penny we got waterside seats and some of the best seafood we have gobbled since leaving home. We opted out of the Singapore chilli crab as it was 50 quid a go! The chilli prawns were great though and there was some crab in with them, so we got the idea, at half the price! There was also live jazz on etc so it made for a pretty amazing end-of-travelling type meal, and rather romantic to boot!

Next day was Zoo day! Singapore Zoo is famous for being one of the best and it did not dissapoint. The Zoo is over the far side of the island and is amazingly landscaped around a reservoir, which only adds to the allure. The Zoo designers deliberately made the zoo with as little glass/fences as possible, using ditches etc instead to seperate us from them. This gives the whole place an almost safari level of realism with nothing between you and a tiger 10 feet away! We saw so many animals its hard to remember but highlights included.... bengal white tigers (feeding), giraffes (feeding), probiscous monkeys and chimps, baboons, meercats, kangaroos, huge alligators and crocs, free ranging orangutans (amazing!), penguins and sea lions, rhinos and even busy asian otters!!! The whole place leaves you begging for more, it was so good that we forgot to have lunch! They also are really good with the environmental and conservation messages and you get the feeling that its more of a 'raison d'etre' here than at most tourist zoos. That night we indulged our love for Japanese food with big bowls of ramen noodles and all sorts of odd side dishes in a brilliant place in the Bugis mall opposite. Trying to shift our hours late to avoid jet lag we also had a late night beer in the arab quarter at a very relaxed bar called Om something.

So onto today. We leave Singapoer at 2am so weve had a full day here but inevitably the impedning end-of-travelling has weighed on our minds the whole day. We went to Orchard road to do some shopping but gave up after a while as the heat was unbearable and we have virtually no money left to spend! Though we did squeeze in a walking lunch befoer leaving! So we headed back over to Bugis for some last minute shopping before dinner and that brings us to now. We have packed up and this is the end of the blog so it can only mean one thing, its the end!

Weve both had such an amazing time travelling that it has almost become 'the norm'. Though we are trying to ready ourselves for teh reverse culture shoc of getting home there really is no way we can. It is going to be as much of a shock getting home as it was arriving in Delhi, as odd as that may soudn to you guys at home. Its such an emotional roller coaster we keep getting waves of exitement about seeing everyone and then a sudden looming realization that tommorow there will be no remote beach, no undiscovered temple or bustling local market!

So before we sign off for good, here are our top things!!

Best city: Singapore!
Best beach: Tarkali-India.
Best food: For me India for Sar Vietnam
Best people: Laos & Malaysia
Best water: Perhentians!
Best natural wonder: Ban Yeak Lom (Cambodia) & Mt Kinabalu (Borneo)
Best old thing!: Angkor
Best bus: Coorg death bus!
Best train: Indian Raj-1st-Class!
Best experience: Lao homestays for both of us and for Sar swimming with dolphins and turtles and....!
Best beer: Beer Lao
Best fruit: Jackfruit anyday! Oh wait mango....!
Best country we have visited: VERY HARD ONE! Everything considered it is India for all its highs and lows we both love the place.

So yer its difficult to sum it all up, so we wont really try, you guys have read along with us so understand how much we have seen and how many amazing people we have met in truly amazing places.

Thanks for reading our long widned blogs and sharing with us on our truly life changing journey...

All our love,
Dean and Sar
xxxx

THE END!!!


PS See you all soon! EXCITED!

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