Our Last Stop - Singapore

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After a great few days in KL we boarded our sleeper train, in fact our last train of the trip to Singapore, we arrived at 8:30am and headed straight to Little India to where we had decided to stay, typically for our last night of our trip we hadn’t booked anywhere so we ended up staying in a dorm, luckily the hostel where we wanted but in a dorm all the same. Our home for the night was The Price of Wales Backpacker Hostel, for a whopping S$18 each. To be fair the dorm was really nice and the whole hostel was very clean and at night very quiet. It even had a nice bar downstairs with wine, yes WINE at a reasonable S$8 a glass!!!!

We couldn’t check in right away so we hung around making the most of the free breakfast they had on offer, also cooking our own eggs and having to wash up ourselves, both things we haven’t done for…..hummmm we can’t even remember!!!! Once we were showered and changed we headed out to view the sights of Singapore, with G’s dad being a regular visitor over here while he was working he had a little walk he liked doing, so we followed his instructions that took us past everything we wanted to see. We got the MRT to Clarke Quay which is on the north bank of the Singapore River and from here we walked east along the river bank which takes you to the opposite side of Boat Quay and to the Raffles Landing Site. From here we turned right and walked awayfrom the river and into the old colonial administrative district, with Parliament House, the Singapore Cricket Club, a large area of grass called the Padang. Along the grass area were more colonial buildings, namely the Supreme Court and City Hall. Next stop was St Andrew's Cathedral which was very pretty inside. After here we headed to Raffles Hotel for a Singapore Sling, well that was what we were hoping to have but upon seeing it was a whopping S$28 each we gave it a miss settling for a walk around the grounds, a potter in the museum and we even sneaked into the lobby of the actual hotel for a nose which was rather grand.

From here we walked along the river by Marina Square and along to the Merlion which is the symbol of Singapore, although not very impressive, rather small actually, in Tony’s words its poo!!! We finished our walk looping around past the grand Fullerton Hotel (definitely grander than Raffles we thought) and back along boat quay for a well deserved beer. This is where we spotted a great bargain, a jug of beer for S$8!!!!! We were in heaven for the next 3 or 4 jugs ops!!!!!

We eventually made our way back to Little India where we had a rather hot curry before a final beer in our hostel before heading to bed in our dorm room for a very good nights sleep!!!!

The next day we got up and packed, this time having to think about where we were packing what, for today we were going to the airport and our first flight in over 8 months and in the whole of our trip!!! As our flight was later on in the evening, we left our bags at the hostel and ventured out, this time to Chinatown. We pottered around here in the boiling heat for a few hours before stumbling upon the Budda Tooth Relic Temple which is massive, apparently it was only recently opened in 2007.
The temple has its origins in the discovery in 1980,of what was thought to be a tooth of Budda inside a collapsed stupa at a Burmese monastery. The monastery’s chief abbot visited Singapore in 2002 and decided the island would make a suitable sanctuary for the relic, to be housed in its own temple if there were a chance in building one. A prime site in Chinatown was selected and construction began in 2005. It a fantastic building and really very beautiful inside.

After the temple we pottered around some more before heading back to Boat Quay for one final jug of S$8 beer before heading back to our hostel to collect our things.

We loved Singapore and will definitely be back, next time with loads of money, it is expensive and its hard going being on a budget with lots of lovely things around you to eat and drink. We didn’t make the Night Safari which Tony did last time he was here as it was S$25 each which would have wiped us out for the rest of our time in Singapore, but will definitely be going there next time!!!!

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