Singapore (Melaka - briefly!)

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We decided to break the journey from KL to Singapore with a stop in Melaka... which was a bit quieter than we expected! In the 'city centre' is a little Dutch style square with red buildings, a fountain and lots of old blokes trying to get you to take a ride in their 'trishaw' - covered in flowers, flashing lights and some had sound systems blaring out random music - everything from 90's techno to Abba to the Titanic theme tune! Having ridiculed them initially we ran out of things to do and hired one for a lift home - we felt pretty bad though coz the guy was really quite old and peddling like crazy! China town was quite nice - and it livened up at night - we witnessed a group of chinese ladies doing line dancing to Jingle bell rock and the local elderley chinese population liked a good karaoke! We only stayed one night, then got the bus to Singapore (15th Dec)...

Clean, chewing gum free Singapore that proceeded to hammer our bank balance! Our hostel was interesting - 20 beds in a dorm - would've been fine apart from the Sri Lankan teenage badminton players that had taken over the place! It was in a really good location though - close to Clarke Quay and Boat Quay where there are loads of restaurants and bars most of which we couldn't afford but the atmosphere was good! There were also 2 subway stations close by making it easy to get wherever we wanted.

So, we took the cable car over to Sentosa Island - pretty impressive view! Had a wander around, saw the giant merlion and had lunch by the fake beach! Spent most of one day having a look round Orchard Road - mainly window shopping though! We found the most amazing bakery in the Paragon (one of the massive malls) from which we bought 8 items and pigged out! One evening we went to Raffles Hotel where we had a drink in the Long Bar - V had a Singapore Sling and Sel had a Strawberry Daquiri - very nice but almost bankrupt us! It came to S$50 - there are about 3 S$ to the pound! We also had a wander around China town which was nice and went on a 'bum boat' along the river to see the Merlion in the Marina spit into the river!

On the evening of the 18th we jumped on a plane to BALI! More to follow soon.....

V and S xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

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