Our stopover in Singapore

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Friday 11th September 2009

Breakfast in Kota Kinabalu, lunch in the air, dinner in Singapore. The life of a pair of international jet-setters!

After breakfast in the hostel (Summer Lodge) in KK, we went out to the airport and returned the car. We told the agent that it would be a good idea to take it to a mechanic but he wasn't very interested.

Arriving at Singapore Changi Airport, we went quickly through immigration and customs. We found the 'Singapore Stopover' desk and checked in, getting our free passes, transfer vouchers and some lovely “Singapore Stopover” stickers we were told to wear while transferring to and from the hotel. Talk about feeling like a package tourist! Still, for NZ$1 each, a night in a hotel, transfers and free entry into some sights, we shouldnt complain, or mock. The MRT into the city was about S$2, one way, so we were up before even getting there!

It took forever to get to the hotel! The traffic was bad, at least it seemed pretty bad, we dont know if that was usual or what, but it was 3-3.30pm on a Friday afternoon. We passed over starting grid / home straight for the upcoming F1 and drove along some roads with track side fencing (catch rails? Safety fencing?) up. There were signs up stating which roads were going to be closed for the duration, but it was pretty clear - plenty of fencing, overhead lights, grandstands... it would be great to be there for the racing. Slightly hypocritical from two people bemoaning the destruction of the jungle, wanting to be somewhere as environmentally unfriendly as the F1.

The hotel, the Excelsior-Peninsular, is a nice business hotel. Oldish buildings that have been renovated, our room was in the Peninsular half of the hotel, up on the 17th floor. We had a corner room which gave us two views out over the city. One way just looked over another couple of hotels, the other way was better, looking over the central fire station and Fort Canning Park. It was a standard room I guess (we dont stay in places like this usually!), large bed, sofa, big tv, but the bathroom was so small! It was about the size of our ensuite at home - and this one had a bath and bigger vanity in it! Definitely only room for one at a time!

We went back downstairs to see the Singapore Stopover agent to try and find out the best way to get places. Unfortunately she was only interested in selling us some tours, and once we said we wanted to take public transport, she moved on to do something else. So no help getting anywhere there.

First stop was possibly the tackiest. We went a block down the road to the Raffles Hotel. Yup, we were tourists and blew some serious money on a Singapore Sling in the bar at Raffles. Cheesy but worth it, even if just to say we did it. Besides, it was my birthday, and we'd got to do something to celebrate! It was funny sitting there though watching the other tourists wander in, sit down and get their Slings. We would have felt a little more civilised had we been dressed better (shirts not t-shirts for example) and if the other people there had been too. The building was neat though!

We took the MRT out to the nearest station to the Night Safari, planning on taking a bus the rest of the way. The MRT was quick and efficient, although getting a ticket took a little thought at first. We were met at the MRT station by a couple of students offering a mini bus ride to the Night Safari, they were meeting all the people that looked like tourists. At first they were saying the ride was free when we bought an entrance ticket including the tram ride, which was fair enough, but it turned out that it was just the ride there that was free, if we wanted a ride back to the MRT station, we needed to pay. As it was only $3, we didn't mind too much. It would have cost something similar, maybe a bit less but not much, to take the bus. And this way was much quicker!

The Night Safari was fun, but in hindsight we might have been better of spending our time elsewhere. It was neat walking around what was basically an extension of the zoo at night, seeing the nocturnal animals in slightly more natural conditions, but we had seen most things on a “real” safari. There was a tram ride round the park as well as some walking trails. We started off on the tram, going about ½ way round. We then walked a couple of the trails, doing a big loop round and back to where we got off the tram. We then took the tram the rest of the way round, doing the loop without walks in. We saw all sorts, from leopards, tigers and lions to buffalo, rhino and deer. There were some Greater Asian Rhino that looked huge! Way bigger than the ones we saw in Africa. Or maybe we were just closer. Some of the cages / fenced off areas were quite small, the tigers were pacing in a frustrated, confined way, it was like they had tried to squeeze as much in as possible. The Flying Squirrel area was neat, a large aviary we walked through, walking under the Flying Squirrels up in the trees. Most of them just sat there, one stepped from one branch to another and back again, like it was trying to get a better view of something, one came flying in over our heads and almost crash landed in the trees. It was similar in the Mangrove Walk, full of fruit bats. Big bats and little ones, flying across the path almost into us, you could feel the air move from their wings. There were bits of fruit fixed to branches near the pathway with bats hanging off them feasting. Cool! The Indian Gharial were a bit freaky, at first all we could see of the nearest one was a bit of back and head, then it drifted backwards and upwards slightly, and we could see all the 4-5m from its long tail to its nostrils high up on its snout. It was way bigger than we though! Not something we'd want to get too close to without a fence between us. We ended up at the Creatures of the Night Show, where we saw binturongs, otters, servals, raccoons and hyenas. The otters were cool, they had been trained to pick up plastic bottles and tin cans and put them in the correct recycle bins - part of the environmental message being put across.

Saturday 12th September 2009

Time seemed to get away from us this morning. We never got around to asking if breakfast was included, but had decided to get something out while we were wandering the streets. Our wanderings were not as random as usual, we had a plan! We needed one with the limited time and huge amount we wanted to see and do. Not that we expected to get much of it done.

We started in the Colonial District, walking past St Andrews Cathedral, the City Hall and the old Supreme Court. The road past the City Hall and old Supreme Court was lined with safety fencing and over head lights ready for the street racing. Walking past Old Parliament House and the Victoria Theatre led us to Raffles Landing. This is where Stamford Raffles was meant to have landed on the banks of the Singapore River back in January 1819. There is a big white statue of Raffles, arms folded, with a back drop of skyscrapers.

From here we walked across the Cavenagh Bridge, built in 1869. Outside the Fullerton Hotel, just beside the bridge, was a cool sculpture of kids jumping in the river. There were a few sculptures around there, scenes from the history of the area, but this was the neatest. Round the corner was the Merlion statue, guarding the entrance to the river mouth. The Merlion is the half-fish, half-lion symbol of Singapore. Supposedly this used to face the open sea, but there is now massive land reclamation and the statue is part of the inner harbour.

From the colonial centre of Singapore and its historic buildings and bridges, we took the MRT out to Jurong to visit the bird park. We opted out of the tram / monorail option this time, it follows the paths and doesn't give you chance to see anything. There are aviaries and displays between each tram station, so you would have to walk anyway. I wont list all we saw, there are heaps of birds there, over 8000 from 600 species according to the guide, and it took us a few hours to wander round. Again, some had too small cages, especially the birds of prey and the parrots, but some weren't too bad. There were several large aviaries we could walk through, some with smaller cages inside, some with the birds “loose and free”. The best was possibly the “Lory Loft”, the worlds largest walk-in lory flight aviary (3000sq m, 9 stories high). It was full of chattering and squawking birds. We went the whole hog and bought a tub of food and stood there with birds flocking around us wanting to get at the nectar mix. Colin had some climbing on his back, standing on top the day pack and nibbling away at the neck of his shirt. I had them clambering all over my hands and wrists trying to get at the food.

We got to see birds up close that we had only seen from a distance before, and saw others that we had missed in their natural environments. We also got vouchers for a free pearl each. We had to pick the oyster and hope that there was something in it. They are farmed oysters from China, but we got two pearls that are reasonably matched in colour and size.

Back in the city centre we did our free bumboat ride along the Singapore River. It left from Clarke Quay, where the shop-houses and warehouses have been completely renovated into a trendy dining and shopping area. We went past Boat Quay with its old shop-houses now transformed into bars and restaurants, under the historic bridges and out to the Merlion. It was only a short cruise, but it was nice to sit down and feel the slight breeze coming through the sides of the boat.

We'd found a nearby art gallery advertising an exhibition featuring the Dead Sea Scrolls. This sounds fascinating, so we decided to stop on our way back to the hotel. When we got there, the place was heaving, people thronging everywhere, holding tickets, queuing up to get in. The ticket booth had been set up outside to avoid the mass of people inside. We changed our minds about going in when we saw the price though - $20 each! Not only did this seem expensive, but we had only changed a little bit of cash and were fast running out, this is an expensive city. While decided what to do, pay up or move on, we read the flyer for the exhibition. Unlike the banners we had seen before, this gave a little more info. The exhibition did contain parts of some Dead Sea Scrolls, but was mainly about writing / printing / documents through the ages. It still sounds interesting, but as it is a travelling exhibition, maybe it will come to NZ and be a bit more affordable! So we went to the Asian Civilisations Museum instead.

For a while $5, we had nearly two hours of air-conditioned comfort, with more than enough to keep us busy. A fascinating museum, well laid out with clean, modern displays - such a contrast to the Sabah State Museum. Not that the museum in Sabah wasn't interesting, its just that it needed a big clean up and overhaul.

We left with just enough time to get back to the hotel, reclaim our packs, get changed from sweaty city walking clothes into something more suitable for sitting on a plane for 10 hours and catch the transfer shuttle back to the airport.

And that was that. The end of our short stopover in Singapore, and the end of this trip. Singapore is definitely somewhere we want to come back to, for longer next time, there is so much more we want to see. It is an expensive city, our time there would have been different if we didn't have the stopover vouchers giving us free entry into some places, but also a fascinating place full of different cultures all mingling together in apparent harmony. We found the people to be friendly and helpful, and the only rudeness we saw was from other tourists (and the Singapore Stopover lady who wouldn't help us after we said we didn't want a tour). Sure you could call the “free” bus to the Night Safari a scam as the fact that you have to pay for the return bus wasn't mentioned upfront, but the driver was incredibly apologetic to us when we were held up by some other tourists arguing and ranting about some part of the deal. For a pair of money conscious backpackers, it was actually quite a good deal! Its just good business practice, lure the tourists in by advertising the good points, and hit them with the rest later!!!

Bring on the next trip! Destination as yet unknown, but you will read all about it here.

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Photos

Shame we cant keep the glass
The drink was expensive enough, you'd think they'd throw in the glass as well. But no, the souvenir shop is there for that!

Caged human
Jurong Bird Park. The cage label says "Worlds Most Dangerous Creature Homo Sapiens"

Not sure what this was
saw it in the African Waterfall aviary