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Published: January 13th 2013
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We woke to overcast skies
on Saturday morning and decided to spend the day doing some sightseeing via a hop on/off tourist bus service. I bought tickets online with my iPad and we headed out into the streets full of optimism. A quick stop at a particularly good bakery for some breakfast pastries and we were on our way. Well, that's what we thought anyway...
We weren't out there long before we realised that we had no idea which bus stop we needed to be at, or at what time, so we retraced our steps back to the hotel where we had Internet access. Further investigation was required. We decided the best idea was to get ourselves to Suntec City Mall, which was the first and last stop on the bus route. Soon we're on our way again, armed with more information and google walking directions to Suntec on the iPad. We got there with no problems. They say the best way to see a city is to walk it, and we have done plenty of that today.
On arrival at Suntec, we were directed by the driver of the bus we tried to board, that we needed to go into
the Mall and get paper tickets from the tour desk. He wasn't interested in looking at our e-vouchers on the iPad. 'No worries', we said, 'we can do that', not anticipating any problems at all.
The staff at the tour desk weren't interested in looking at the e-vouchers either, they wanted to see paper vouchers and were very insistent about it. We had no access to a printer to print out vouchers so we stood our ground, despite the growing queue behind us. I pointed out a paragraph in the confirmation email, stating that e-vouchers were perfectly acceptable as proof of purchase. Eventually they relented when I agreed to email them a copy of the vouchers, which they could print out themselves, when I returned to the hotel later in the day. So finally, paper tickets in our hot little hands, we boarded our first bus.
The buses followed four different routes. We decided on the Heritage Route and had a great day exploring the older streets of the city. We roamed through the markets of Little India, explored the laneways in Chinatown, had a quick look at The Thieves Market and lunched in the colonial grandeur of
Raffles Hotel. We couldn't get inside the hotel as we weren't paying guests but had access to the gift shop, all outdoor areas, including the spacious marble tiled verandahs and the courtyard bar/bistro. A night spent in the quiet luxury of this beautiful hotel will cost you upward of $400. A beer in the courtyard bar $19, a coke $7. We ordered a 12"pizza, a glass of wine and a coke for lunch, total cost $56.50 SGD ($43.75 AUD).
The day was hot and humid with another big thunder storm in the late afternoon. We found ourselves at Suntec Mall after finishing the tour, with the rain and hail pounding down, and decided a taxi back to our hotel was the only way to go. It's the rainy season in Singapore right now and these thunder storms are a daily occurrence.
After showers and a couple of hours break in our room, we heading out again in search of dinner. The streets were crowded, music thundered from the market stands and the atmosphere was great! We had our pick of dozens of eateries and finally settled on a stand at a food hawkers market where we purchased huge
bowls of Lar Mee, a thick broth with fish, blackened boiled eggs and noodles, for $2.50 each. We shared a table with a local couple as the place was very busy. They expressed surprise to see us eating there, as it was a little out of the way, and we were the only westerners in sight. We enjoyed chatting with them as we ate, then we headed into the labyrinth of 600 market stalls in Bugis Junction and lost ourselves in some serious browsing.
I'll be back in Singapore for 3 days at the beginning of July. It's my last stop before heading back to Australia. That will give me plenty of time to see more of this beautiful city. Tomorrow we fly to Siem Reap in Cambodia to start our volunteer work with Globalteer on Monday.
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Roslyn Amiss
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Great blogs Deb - keep up the good work.