Singapore

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We had left Kuala Lumpur with two stowaways a.k.a Rachel & Ellie (admittedly they weren't stowaways but now our party had doubled) on the 9am coach to Singapore. Our coach to the border was a relatively luxurious one with more leg room than a Quantas Airbus A380. After a brief food stop at the Malaysian equivalent of Little Chef we filled in our departure and arrival cards for the impending border crossing. Now I say impending because as we were filling in the cards the supporting information states that you are not allowed to bring in certain goods that include alcohol and tobacco. I think the theory being that it stops people from Singapore doing alcohol runs i.e. Dover-Calais runs before Summer and Christmas and as it is a border control it alleviates the illegal smuggling of contraband.

The problem Kate and I had was that we had stocked up on 400 cigarettes at a cost of 1.20 GBP (!!!!!)per sleeve and a litre of vodka and carried it from Lankawi for nearly two weeks. As we had to take everything off the coach and walk through a very plush border control, compared to what we had previously encountered at border crossings, we just had to hope that they didnt pay any attention to our little indiscretions. After showing our passports and getting the relevant Visa stamp I passed my bag, which contained the cigarettes, through the X-Ray machine without any problem and waited for Kate. The luck of the Oirish was not on our side as when Kate passed her bag through the sirens started ringing!! They actually weren't the sirens that made a noise they were more sirens in the border officials head. Kate was asked to open her bag and there it was the litre of Vodka that Kate had tried to smuggle into the country.

We were escorted into a side office and asked to wait. After a third officer joined us in the office they emptied Kate's bag to check if she wasnt an international alcohol smuggler. They obviously hadn't carried Kate's bag as they would of realised that there wasnt even enough space to smuggle vodka minitures in there never mind any more litres of alcohol!! Admittedly I thought it was kind of funny but when I turned to see another office behind me that held a jail cell the predicament seemed a little bit more serious. As I still had the tobacco contrband in my bag I thought it would be wise to remove my bag from the smuggling situation and get it back on the coach that was waiting on the other side of the border.

As we had we had been in the 'smuggling' office waiting for over 15mins the first driver of the coach was gesticulating his annoyance whilst the second driver was threatening to leave us if we didnt hurry up. This type of attitude wasnt helping the situation so I told them both in no uncertain terms what I would do to them and their private parts if they attempted to leave us. Luckily for us the girls were on the coach so they watched our day bags to make sure the drivers didnt leave them on the side of the road. I went back upstairs to the smugglers office where Kate was being questioned about her faux pas. The officer informed Kate of the possible punishments of smuggling alcohol, which i think was getting your big toe chopped off, and then conviscated the vodka to probably drink at their Christmas party. So we managed to evade prosecution and avoided the assault of two coach drivers and rejoined the journey into Singapore.

In true South-East Asian style the coach driver dropped us nowhere near the centre of Singapore. I swear that its a unwritten coach driver rule and its definitiely the first question in their theory test 'where do you drop your passenger's after a 6-9 hour journey? a) at the coach station b) in the centre of the city close to transport and accommodation or c) wherever the hell you like. I digress slightly but its been four months in S.E Asia now and I can honestly not remember it ever being any different. Anyhoo we got dropped off on God Knows Where Street at the junction of Where Do We Go Now Road and We Havent Got A Clue Lane and it didnt take being fluent in Malay to work out that we needed a taxi!!!! Our destination was Little India as we had a rough idea that was where the concentration of hostels were.

We found a hostel called the Tresor Tavern with a bench outside and decided this was going to be where we plonked our bags and looked for a hostel. By virtue of being the most organised (also read proactive) Rachel and I decided to walk around the local vacinity looking for a room. After an hour or so with no joy we went back to the Tresor Tavern and in true backpacker style booked in there as it was the first place we looked at! The rooms were the most expensive we had paid for so far in South-East Asia but it had air-con and we were only here for two nights so we thought we'd treat ourselves before our flight to Australia. Whilst booking in Ellie and Rachel coincidentally bumped into a scouse guy called Paul that they had met in Thailand, after brief introductions the four of us unpacked our necessaries for two nights together in a dorm room.

As we were staying in Little India we felt it would be rude not to taste the local delicacies so we met up with Paul and enjoyed the nicest food we'd had in a while. It seems like the Sinaporean curries are made similiar to Indian and Thai curries rather than the Malaysian curries that are just not.

After we were fed it was time to get watered and head into the city to sample some of the nightlife. The nightlife in Singapore centres around the Clarke Quay which is a historical riverside quay that has five blocks of restored warehouses of restaurants and nightclubs. There are also moored Chinese junks that have been refurbished into floating pubs and restaurants. Within Clarke Quay Kate had heard about a bar called The Clinic. The Clinic can only be described as the craziest themed bar i have ever supped in. Its a bar that has would-be avant garde decor that is themed on a hospital. It includes a dining area where people sit on gold plated wheelchairs and food was served in stainless steel medical dishes. The tables outside are a mixture of hospital beds with wheelchairs to sit in and the cocktails are served in drips. Yes drips!!!!!

For the pure 'its something we can say we've done' we sat down and looked at the possible medication's on the cocktail list. While waiting for the waiter to come back we took this as our cue to joyride the wheelchairs. So there we were riding these chairs around Clarke Quay whilst getting very strange looks from passers-by. Maybe they thought we had escaped from a mental institution but it was a lot of fun. Me and Paul thought we would take the joyriding further and were attempting wheelies in the wheelchairs. It consists of rolling the wheels forward with your hands and then pulling them back very quickly causing the chair to tilt backwards. Its very adrenaline-filled as you can imagine but the risk of falling backwards and making a t*t of yourself was very high so we kept trying it until the waiter came back with a stern look on his face.

The price of the cocktail's started at 30GBP which instigated tears in the eyes of Paul and I. We asked the waiter if they had any cheaper beers and he replied 'this isn't a 7-11!!!' to which we replied 'Yeah we know do know where there is one??!!'. It turns out that there was a 7-11 round the corner selling cheap beer so me and Paul agreed that this was our best option. We left the girls to enjoy their cocktail out of the drips and sat outside the 7-11 drinking our large bottles of Tiger- classy I know!!!!

The girls rejoined us on the steps of the 7-11 and then joined us in a few rounds alcohol from the 7-11 fridge-again classy I know! After now getting slightly tipsy we decided to move on but first Kate had to use the loo. Next to the 7-11 is a shopping centre that was mostly closed off apart from the entrance to McDonald's. There were no toilets in McDonald's so the security guard had pointed Kate in the direction of the facilities. Kate came back and was very excited, the security guards had told her about a karaoke bar on the fifth floor of the shopping centre.

The Karaoke bar was a reception area with a long corridoor with lots of rooms branching off it. We paid for hire of the room at reception and I have to choose a bottle of drink to take in with us. With the room and 100s of CDs to ourselves the night turned into a barrel of laughs at our attempts at destroying some of the 80 & 90s classics. After we had downed our bottle of spirits Paul and I went back to the 7-11 and snook more alcohol into our room. I cant honestly remember how long we were there for but im certain we stayed for another hour and consumed lots more alcohol from 7-11. By the end of the night we were all up singing, even me who has never been on Karaoke before, and really trying our best to ensure the owner didnt call the police on the assumption that he could hear someone or something being murdered. It was a random night, one we hadn't planned but sometimes these nights are the best one's.

So we stumbled out at God knows what hour and managed to summon a taxi. The problem with this scenario was that as we had only been in Singapore for less than 12 hours and had barely made any attention to the name of our hostel we couldnt tell the driver where to go. We had no landmarks to point to or any places of interest to reference. We could remember that it was near Little India but it turns out that Little India is bigger than we imagined. After a lot of arguing with the driver and a lot of confusing (drunken) description's of the road we were staying on the taxi driver finally lost his patience and kicked us to the curb. At the time I thought the taxi driver's reaction wasnt quite helping the situation as we went from being lost in a taxi driving round Singapore to being lost on the corner of a street in Singapore. Blindly confident that I knew where we were, we proceeded to walk round for about an hour before Kate lost her patience and sat on the corner of a road refusing to follow me anymore as we were walking in circles. When I say we were walking in circles I was infact actually leading us round in a big circle (actually it was a square) as we had walked round a few blocks and were now back to the place where the taxi had dropped us without even realising it. In a moment of divine intervention Kate looked in the opposite way to the direction we walked in and found the road we were staying on. As luck would have it the taxi had kicked us out 75m from our hostel but it was only me stupidly taking us the wrong way on a detour that had stopped us finding our beds an hour earlier. Add to this drama me losing our key and you'll have a better idea of our first night in Singapore.

The morning started with a groggy head which could only have been solved with a Maccies breakfast, it was more like lunch due to the time we woke up but it still helped with the hangover. On the way back I bumped into the girls at reception as they had gone to the airport to meet their friend Annie-May who was flying into Singapore. After we were introduced, Annie-May settled in and unpacked a few things before a few more hours rest was needed by everyone. The evening was a fairly quiet affair as Kate and I had our flight to Australia. We went for another curry at the same place we ate the night before and then retired to the Hostel's reception area to play cards. We introduced the girls to blackjack and cheat (which was harder work than I thought) over a few beers, before hitting the sack.

One of the main attractions in Singapore, apart from the Raffles Hotel, is Sentosa Island. Sentosa, which translates to peace and tranquility in Malay, is an island resort that is visited by some five million people a year. Attractions include a two-kilometre long sheltered beach, Fort Siloso, two golf courses and two five-star hotels, and the Resorts World Sentosa, featuring the theme park Universal Studios Singapore. The girls had to book their onward flight to Indonesia so it was just me, Kate and Paul that went. The plan was to only stay for a few hours as we still had to finish packing, check-out and catch the train to the airport.

So we got the monorail over to Sentosa Island with the plan to relax on the man-made beach at Cafe Del Mar. The funny thing about Sentosa is the friendliness of the staff; as we approached our stop on the monorail there were two hosts on the platform waving at us. It wasnt just the waving that was weird it was the forced smiles on their faces. Im certain they both had fixed stares that made them look kind of sinister. It was like 'Welcome to Sentosa where we eat tourists for breakfast and nobody will hear you being tortured'. Im sure Disneyland is the same but all three of us were on guard for some crazy League of Gentlemen type characters jumping out at us.

With only limited time on the Island we had a go on the luge track and then decided relaxing on the beach was just the recipe for preparation for a long flight. So we found some very comfortable beds at the Cafe Del Mar beach bar and soaked up some rays. Kate enjoyed a Mojito, Paul tucked into some Nachos whilst I dozed off. The beach area was really nice and they played a few good tunes but unfortunately we didnt have enough time to fully enjoy the experience. We would have liked to stay longer but time (and our wallets as everything was soooo expensive) wasnt on our side; so we headed back to the monorail and back to the mainland not before mocking the members of staff on the platform with our own version of the psycho wave & stare. To be fair we waited until we were out of range and made sure we done it so they wasnt looking just incase it turned into Sean of the Dead.

Once we got back the Tresor Tavern the girls were making their way over to Sentosa as they had booked their flights for the following day. The goodbyes were brief because they had to get onto the monorail and plus we knew that we would see each other again in Australia. We'd only spent a short amount of time with Paul in Singapore and Ellie & Rachel in Malaysia and Singapore but we had a real good laugh together. They are as funny as anything, really easy to get on with and have a warped sense of humour; both Kate and I will definitely look forward to our paths crossing again.

With our bags packed and hoisted onto our backs we checked out of the Tresor Tavern and headed towards the train station. It was only a 15mins walk but not being use to carrying our bags again made the 15min walk seem like 50mins. Luckily for us the train had air-con so had chance to cool off before we got off at the airport. Like good little traveller's we had arrived at the airport a good three hours before departure so once we had checked our bags in, got changed and had a wash in the restrooms there was more than enought time left for a beverage. The airport has a rooftop pool and bar overlooking the runway which was a very fitting and appropriate place to consider the next leg of our journey and the perfect location to reflect on an action-packed four months which has taken us to Thailand (twice), Loas, Vietnam, Cambodia, Malaysia and Singapore. So eventually our flight number was called and that was that, our flight to Australia was here.

And now the end is near, and so I face the final curtain. My friend, I'll say it clear I'll state my case of which I'm certain... Well the end of South-East Asia is here but as the old saying goes when one door closes, another one opens and our next door (well gate number 26) would lead us to Australia. We have enjoyed an amazing four months since leaving the UK, as our blogs will attest to, and will have fond memories of everything we have done. In retrospect its hard to say which was our favourite place and to remain impartial I will say that we have enjoyed everywhere we have been to and for different reasons. Time may offer a rose-tinted perspective of South-East Asia and one place may move to number one status in the future but at the moment ill say South-East Asia was awesome!!!!

Good night and Godbless
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p.s. We were only in Singapore for two days and looking at this blog its one of the longest ive written, it just goes to show that ive kept the jack-a-nories to a minimum and maintained the mantra of keeping the blogs short and sweet from the very first to the very last :-)

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Photos

Singapore
The stowaway's were incognito

Singapore
Like I said incognito

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We were smiling now but not after we'd been through passport control

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The dorm room we would be sharing with the girls

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Welcome to the madness Paul

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Pre-night out drinks

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Everyone is now warmed up for the forthcoming evening after a few vodkas

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Kate sat in the Doctor's chair at "The Clinic'

Singapore
This is just a weird picture

Singapore
Im sure the girls are trying to do a dance routine in the wheelchairs

Singapore
Smile!!!

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My attempt at a wheelie

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They really did serve the cocktails in a drip

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Cheapo's outside the 7-11

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Yes Kate you are with the cheapo's. Is that a Bacardi Breezer behind your back??!!

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The Karaoke bar

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The extortionate drink's in the Karaoke Bar

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The one & only time ive karaokied

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The Supreme's eat your heart out. Paul was actually dead serious that he was a good singer :-)

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A round of applause from Kate

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Are we lay on the floor??!!