Feeling hot, hot hot!!

Stepping off the plane in Singapore it felt like we were walking into a sauna! We grabbed our luggage and made our way to our hotel; we had found it hard to find a hotel when we were looking so we were not sure what to expect but actually the room was ok. It did have a bit of a musty smell and the wallpaper was coming off the walls but it was fairly clean and safe which were the main things!! We were staying in the Arab quarter which was a great place to be as it was right in the heart of all the nice places to eat and was quite lively with atmosphere in the evening. There was a huge mosque just around the corner which was painted in gold paint and lit up at night; I had never seen a mosque before, it was really impressive. That night we went for a lebanese meal and had a look around some of the shops, the first one we stepped into we saw so many things that could look good in our flat but managed to maintain some discipline and walk back out again - I dont know if we will be this strong all the time!!

Exploring Singapore the following day we walked around Little India (the Indian quarter), they had lots of material shops selling fabric to make sari's and flower shops making wreath's for the temples. It was very interesting to wander around although I did get rather too much attention from the indian men, so much so that Steve was getting jealous (that doesn't happen much!). We had a look in a couple of the hindu temples and me being a teacher took lots of photos for future RE lessons! Next, we caught the metro (which is much better than the London tube) to Chinatown. Steve was looking to buy a new camera so he wandered into a few of the many camera shops and every china man thought that he could offer a better deal than the last!! In chinatown we again saw lots of shops where we could have spent a lot of money - although what with I am not sure as our funds are vanishing by the second! We looked into some of the chinese temples which were very ornate and highly decorated before getting some rice and stir fried meat for lunch at the pricely sum of a fiver. Later in the afternoon we wandered around the colonial part of the town where we saw the prestigious Raffles hotel and Raffles Landing place (for those who don't know he was an English explorer who laid English claim to Singapore).

On Saturday we went to Singapore Zoo, we had been told that it was a must and one of the best zoo's in the world. We saw all of the animals and Steve must have taken in excess of 60 photos, filling up my memory card - so you could say we had a good day! In amongst the usual suspects at a zoo we saw mandrill monkeys, probiscus monkeys, a sun bear, a black and white thing that I cannot remember the name of and other tropical animals! The best bit was the orang utans who swang from tree to tree above our heads; they have free reign to roam about in the zoo. In the evening we went to a jazz cafe with a live band playing, they were very good and we managed to eat something that was not rice - result!!

On our last day in Singapore Steve made it his mission to buy a camera so we went to lots of shops; there was 1 shopping centre entirely devoted to electrical gadgets - a man's dream, especially Steve's! In the end after a bit of umming and arraghing he purchased a new digital camera that came with all the works, memory card, bag, stand, cleaning kit etc. A very happy chappy! To recover from all of the leg work we went for chinese tea at a tea house. Now this was not any normal cup of tea, we were taught the fine art of chinese tea making - there are many stages starting with getting the water to the required temperature for each type of tea. We had White tea; the water was poured from the kettle to the tea pot, from there to the 'fair' cup, from there to the 'sniff' cup and finally to the drinking cup - by the end it was a very tasty cup of tea. Steve and I enjoyed the experience so much that we would love to bring a chinese tea set home but the only problem is that they cost a bomb - maybe I could find a cheaper alternative in Chinatown?! In the evening we went to a Korean BBQ where a hot plate was set in the middle of our table to cook our meat on and then a gas ring was on the side of the table for soup. We opted for half chilli soup and half chicken soup however after one spoonful of the chilli soup I could not eat any more it was so hot that I had to empty out my bowl and even then I could not even eat anything else out of it I had to get a new one! Steve braved on a little longer but then even he had to give up - I think it was even hotter than one of Brian's specials!!

The next morning we were up early to get the bus to Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia. After 45 minutes of being on the bus we had the border crossing with the longest queue I have ever seen - even worse than any in South America. After half and hour we made it through but had to wait for everyone else, an hour later we were on our way to Kuala Lumpur. All in all the journey took about 7 hours and we got out in KL it was complete chaos, there were so many people and motor bikes absoloutely everywhere. We had met a danish guy on the bus and he happened to be staying near our hostel so we all got a cab together. The first one we got in tried to charge us about 3 times as much as it should be so out we got again and into another which was less than half of the original guy, it was quite amusing trying to cram 3 people and our bags into the cab - in the end the driver put our bags in the boot with a piece of bungy rope to hold the lid down! In the evening we went for a meal in Chinatown with Michael (our new Danish friend) and a few cocktails at the Reggae Bar all of which came to about 18 pounds for the two of us - bargain!!!

KL is a huge city so we took the light railway to get around most of it, we visited the Indian quarter and looked around the city mosque where I had to wear a robe and headscarf to cover up. We went up the KL tower which had a great view over the city but unfortunately the Petronas Tower had run out of tickets as they only let a certain number of people up each day - still we might be able to do this on our return to KL. The central market was right by our hostel and we have spied a few things to pick up there on our return too, before our last few days in Bangokok. Now we are in Sarawak in Borneo but I will leave our tales of woe from here until the next blog!

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