Advertisement
Published: August 9th 2007
Edit Blog Post
Singapore
We arrived in Singapore about 9 in the morning after having practically no sleep from the rockiest train journey so far! Every time I felt that I may possibly drift off, the train would crash and lurch down the track causing me to be wide awake again.
Now we made a little bo bo arriving in Singapore. Not that I'm saying it could of been avoided it in terms of timing, however it could of been avoided in terms of our expectations. Chinese New Year was on the 18th of Feb, and everyone we had spoken to over the past month had informed us that this was to be a truly massive event, especially in Singapore due to the high population of Chinese.
Therefore arriving on the morning of the 18th we were thinking, great, should be good, huge street parties and celebrations going on all around. We couldn't have been more wrong. What everyone who we had spoken to the weeks before failed to tell us was that all the celebrating is done before and up until the 18th, and then bang, everything is closed up for three days solid.
There was nothing going on at all when
Now thats what I call errie quiet!
The deserted streets on Chinese New Year. As you can see, we had no problems with traffic when getting to the hotel on our first day! we arrived, all the shops were closed, (except 7/11's and Starbucks of course) and the roads we so dead it was like being in the opening seen to Vanilla Sky!
We got a taxi to our hotel, one bonus being this didn't cost us much on the metre as the driver didn't have to stop once, except for the occasional set of deserted red traffic lights.
Our hotel for the first 3 nights was in an area called Geylang. It is a fairly run down part of the city, and the centre of the red light district. There are loads of hotels situated in the area all of which seem to be run by two different hotel chains, Fragrance, which we stayed in, and Hotel 81.
Both chains offer budget accommodation from around 14 quid per night on the net. So the rooms are cheap for Singapore, and to be fair, although bloody tiny, they are at least clean and secure. From our window we could see out on the dirty streets below, and it was quite amusing to watch the dirty old local men trying to neg deals with the awefull looking whores at 1030 in the morning!
Central Singapore
Taken one morning from Fort Canning Park The area was at least good in terms of reaching the city. Three stops on the tube and your there. The first day we did very little, we went into the city in the morning, while we waited for our room to be ready. As a result neither of us had showered, or slept for that matter, and as we sat in a Starbucks at City Hall, we both kinda seemed to be in a daze, feeling a bit trampish, waiting for the time we could get to our room, shower and rest.
After a recharge we woke to darkness and got ready to go out. We went into China Town on the tube, and although was all shut up, we did find a restaurant or two still serving. After dinner we basically done the first night ritual of getting our bearings and learning the area. We jumped on and off a few tube stops but all seemed rather quite.
I would be lying if I were to say that the next day was any more exiting than the day before. Everything was still closed, so we thought, where can we go that will still be open? The
botanical gardens in Singapore are meant to be real nice so we thought, hey why not check that out. After only half hour of being there it decided to piss down with rain. We spent the next half hour under a large tree in hope of staying dry, before finally giving up and continuing on anyway.
In the afternoon we went to a Museum, not planned at all. Was just looking at the out side of the building, and it turned out to be free entry that day, and bearing in mind it had just stared to rain again we thought going in would be a good option. After that we went to the famous Raffles Hotel. Singapore's first luxury hotel, and it's very very expensive to stay here. We did walk into the foyer at one point but were kindly asked to leave as we were wearing shorts. Quite what your meant to do when you stay there and feel like wearing a pair shorts I don't know!
The following day we moved hotels in the morning. It wasn't that the hotel was that bad, it was purely because we had booked two nights there and the other
Getting to grips with new technology
I try out a new method of transport at the I-Future centre two in Chinatown. However staying in Chinatown was a breath of fresh air, closer to the centre and undoutably with a nicer feel to it. Our hotel, The Royal Peacock was nice, although the rooms on the third floor where we were had no windows! I have to say, although it didn't really bother me, this didn't make me feel like spending anymore time in the room than I had to, knowing that it was a nice sunny day outside. Waking in the mornings in the pitch black was a strange sensation too, with absolutely no clues as to what time of day it was! Rob and I had the conversation with each other going back to our estate agency days, of whether you can actually legally class a room as room in the UK, if it has no windows!
Later that morning we went to a place called Sentosa Island, which is a rather strange place. Sentosa is a small island not far from the centre. It is kind of a mix between a theme park and a beach area. As soon as we set foot in there from the cable car that links it from the main
land we felt as though we were in a sort of fake artificial world. A bit like the classic film, "West World". We clambered our way though the hoards of people to the beach areas, realising we had finally discovered where the Singaporeans spend their public holidays. This again seemed almost man made rather than the natural beaches we had become used to in Thailand and Malaysia.
On our last couple of days in Singapore things were back to normal, the shops were open, the streets were busy and people were back to work. We spent one of these days walking through Fort Canning Park in the morning and then onto Orchard Road, where the endless shopping centres stretch down both sides of the streets, for what is probably a good KM or so. Later in the afternoon Rob went back to the room and I continued to explore the areas of Little India and our own neighbourhood of Chinatown.
We spent our last evening on Clarke Quay and Boat Quay, both popular evening areas, with lots of bars and Restaurants fighting for your custom.
The 22nd of Feb was our last day in Singapore and also our last
day in Asia. Our flight wasn't till the afternoon so we had time to visit the science and future museum beforehand. We caught the tube direct to the airport at around 4pm, which was probably easier, quicker, and defiantly cheaper than catching a cab.
Three months since we left the UK, and it now only dawns on me that on leaving Asia, the trip suddenly seems to be going by quite quickly- Anyway lets not worry too much about that yet - Onwards we go down under !
Advertisement
Tot: 0.044s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 8; qc: 24; dbt: 0.0239s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb