Singapore; our first stop in Asia

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When we arrived at Changi airport on Thursday evening we were very excited, after the eight hour flight from Cairns we were tired but we'd been looking forward to this part of our trip for so long we were on a natural high. As we went through the airport to get our passports stamped we saw two Buddhist monks in their bright orange robes, we couldn't help but stare and be glad that finally, once again, there was something to stare at.

We then got the super sleek underground train straight to Chinatown, where we planned to stay. We arrived at our station and as the escalator brought us out into the open we were welcomed by the sight of a hundred Chinese lanterns and beautifully carved buildings. The streets were full of bustling market stalls selling souvenirs and other Chinese handcrafts. Restaurants spilled onto the streets selling all sorts of noodle and rice dishes, all for less than a pound and washed down with bottles of Tiger Beer. We both felt a wave of happiness, almost relief to be somewhere unfamiliar again was such a comforting feeling, at last, we were in Asia.

The hostel we had picked out of the Lonely Planet turned out to be full but the owner directed us to another place just around the corner that had a couple of beds free in a dorm. Being the dorm snobs that we are we were reluctant but our backpacks were heavy and it was fully air conditioned so we decided to stay. We dropped our bags off and went straight back out to have a good explore, we made our way through the street markets and stopped for a beer, suddenly fatigue set in and we decided to go back to our hostel and get a good nights sleep because tomorrow we wanted to fit in as much sightseeing as possible.

We spent the whole of the next day pounding the pavement, covering what felt like every inch of Singapore. Starting in Little India which is full of silk and rug shops, small markets that sell spices and unidentifiable fruit and vegetables. We stopped here for some Korean food. We then went into the city center where we walked the full length of Orchard Road, famous for its shops and at this time of year, its Christmas lights. The shopping centers were full of designer shops catering for the richer residents filling a large proportion of Singapore. Way out of our league they were more useful as cooling off stops as we made our way through the busy streets we popped in and out of these department stores to soak up the air conditioning. Whilst doing this we were stunned to find ourselves standing outside possibly the most English shop in the world, Marks & Spencers luminescent green sign was the strangest sight. So strange we were compelled to take a photo of it.

Next we visited the famous Raffles Hotel, named after the founder of Singapore, Mr Raffles. This is also the place where the Singapore Sling was created so of course we had to sample the original cocktail in the hotel bar which was delicious. The bar felt very English, with it's high ceilings covered in beams, dark wooden floor and bar which was lined with beer pumps, the shuttered windows allowed only a bit of natural light in creating an atmosphere. We made our drinks last as long as possible and crunched our way through as many of the free nuts as we could; something I haven't mentioned yet is that although it is cheaper than Australia, Singapore is quite expensive, especially if you go to the Raffles Hotel for a cocktail, when our bill came we found out our two drinks had cost us 20 English Pounds!

Feeling a little poorer we left the hotel bar and as it was now starting to get dark we decided to head to another end of town where there is the 'world biggest fountain', we'd heard they put a laser show on through the water in the evenings so decided to check it out. It wasn't as spectacular as we thought it would be and after we decided to head back to Chinatown for a bite to eat. We had bought tickets for Singapore Zoo the next day which was another early start.

We caught the Zoo bus from Orchard Road at 9am the following morning, we had also bought tickets to go to the Zoo's 'Night Safari' so we had a whole day and night ahead of us of looking at animals. Unlike Australia Zoo which specialises in certain species, Singapore Zoo has everything it can fit into a compound. We were particularly looking forward to seeing their Orangutans because we are planning on going to try and see them in the wild at some point in our trip. They were incredible, we saw them quite close up, we had always been very amazed by how human-like they are and when the keeper told us that they actually have 97% of the same DNA as humans we weren't surprised. We were more excited than ever to try and see them in the wild. Among the many animals we saw the most amazing were the polar bears, white tigers, sloths and flying foxes. We also saw Capuchin monkey's and Spider monkeys, two of the types of monkey's I looked after at the animal sanctuary in Bolivia, it was lovely to see them again.

After a long day at the zoo we just had enough time for a quick bite to eat and then we walked down the road to the Night Safari. First of all we saw a show where some nocturnal animals were exhibited and did a few tricks which were actually really cute and not in-humane at all. Then we made our way around the specially mapped out paths around the enclosures. It was quite amazing to see the animals at night time, many of them acted very differently after dark, especially the hyenas who were 'laughing' and running around frantically. The best moment was when we were watching a group of three male lions, there weren't many people around at this point when one of the lions started pacing around, after a while he stopped and let out a series of three or four deep, throaty roars into the night. He looked very majestic; seeing this added to an urge we are both developing to visit Africa and see his relations in the wild.

After a very long day we got the last train back to Chinatown, which by this time was almost all packed up for the night. Tomorrow we head to Malaysia and a city called Melaka.

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