Singapore

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Hi Eveyone hope all is well at home.

So we have spent the last couple of days in Singapore. We had a bit of an eventful journey to get here. The bus journey started of well in KL we got a lovely bus with very comfortable big chairs but the weather was terrible for the whole journey with torrential rain and thunder and lighting for the whole journey which made the journey feel even longer. To top it of while still in malaysia a van decided to crash into the side of our bus taking the mirror with it. Our bus driver was so funny running after the other driver through the traffic and the rain. After a lot of shouting and hand gesturing we were back on our way, but not for to long as our driver dumped us off at the next bus station to get another bus the rest of the way, he obviously had some unfinished business with the other driver! We boarded the other bus and got through the border pretty quickly thank god. We heard stories of buses leaving without you if you take longer than 30 minutes and people having to get very expensive taxi rides the rest of the way. After a long and tiring day we eventually made it to Singapore. We jumped in a taxi to take us to our hostel as it was still raining only for our taxi driver to struggle to find it. We got checked in to our hostel the drop inn which was really nice the husband and wife were very friendly and were very helpful. The only downside was the room which can only be described as a cell with no windows and bunk beds, and pretty expensive too! We headed out around little India and found the city square mall to get something to eat. We had a lovely meal in the very busy Astons. We decided to get the metro down to see Clarke Quay. The place was nice and very busy but it was so expensive for drink and food. $15 dollars a bottle of beer is definitely not in the backpacker budget so we did what the rest of the backpackers were doing. Head to the 7Eleven get a few beers and sit on the bridge watching the rich folk go by!

On our second day we decided to catch the metro and go to see the famous shopping district Orchard Road. We spent a few hours wandering around the fancy shops and looking at all the christmas trees and lights in the roasting hot sun! Very strange all together. We had to head back to the hostel early as we had booked to go to the night safari at Singapore zoo. We got to the zoo and first got on the train that takes you around the different enclosures for about an hour with a guide giving us some information on the way around. Once the train was finished we were free to wander around the different tracks to see all the different animals which was cool. With it being the night time a lot of the animals who would usually be lying around during the day are really active. And just walking around the place when it is so dark just feels different and scary haha! The only problem is trying to get good photos with it being so dark and not being able to use flash but we did manage to get a few good shots. We both really enjoyed going to the zoo and would reccomend going if you are ever here. After we got back to town we were both starving and we headed to one of the local food centres which are open 24hours to get something to eat. We also managed to get a cheap bottle of heineken which went down nice with a few chicken wings!

On our last day we had our flight to Cairns in the evening so we just wrote a few post cards, sent some stuff back home and got ourselves fed and watered before catching the rush hour metro to the airport which was pretty fun. It's so funny everyone is squashed into the train but almost everyone manages to either play games or watch things on there phone or ipad. No way could you actually speak to anyone else during your daily commute. I don't know how we managed to squash in with all our bags haha!

We had a brief but good time in Singapore it is a very interesting place altogether. Some parts feel like you are in New york and others like the rest of asia. It is worth a couple of days to go and see.

Next stop, Cairns Australia. Lets see what all this hype is about.

Lots of love Laura and Ian

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