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Upon arrival in Singapore we met Ken and Carole (the american's we met at the train station) on the platform and decided we would see if the place they were staying had spare rooms. We had arrived by sleeper train and it had been a long night due to the train before ours de-railing and us having to get a coach past it. We shared a cab to the Little India area of downtown Singapore and found a hostel called The Inn Crowd. They had no twin rooms availible until tomorrow but did have dorm rooms (something we hadn't used yet due to cheap prices everywhere). We decided we needed to get into the habit of staying in dorms due to horror stories we had heard about Australia hostel prices, so we checked in. The reception girl here was amazingly helpful and seemed to always be doing about 5 things at once. She told Ken of a good palce to eat and the 4 of us headed down there for rice and chicken. The food was good and suprisingly cheap for what is one of the most expensive cities in the world. We'd be heading back to eat here again. We
Singapore
The Esplanades Theatre on the left...all wanted to go to the Night Safari in the evening later, Carole decided she needed a nap and Ken stuck with us for the afternoon. We got on the MRT (like the underground but cheaper) and headed towards the river side area of downtown. We walked around for a few hours and saw the Singapore flyer (similar but taller than the London Eye), Raffles Hotel, St Andrews Cathedral and Singapore's new theatre that sits next to the river almost similar to Sydney's Oprah house. We also saw singapore's famous (and very odd) statue that we previously knew nothing of - the Merlion! The Merlion is a mix up of a fish and a lion in the style of a mermaid! We walked back after realizing we were closer to home than the MRT station. Ken went to get Carole and we played a quick game of pool (anyone is welcome to challenge us when we return!). We got tickets to the Night Safari, which is a night time Zoo located next to Singapore's Zoo. This place had some really good reviews so we were excited to see what it was like. The place was very well presented, we first
Raffles Hotel
Very famous and expensive - named after the found of Singapore got on a open bus ride through area's of the park just as it began to get dark, we had a guide upfront telling us about the animals and spotting them for us in some casses. After seeing lions, tigers, rhinos, hiennas, and other animals in the dark we stopped at an area where we could do some walking about. It was crazy how close we could walk to the animals areas and it wasn't too busy either. We saw leopards and tigers on this walking part and they must have been less than a foot from us when we went to a glass window area. The highlight was the bat enclosure. We walked through about 3 securty doors and ended up in small dark caged room. We started to realize there was a lot of bats in here with us, they were flying right into our faces and pulling away at the last second. Some big ones were sleeping upside down and were easily over a foot long, one jumped off and flew past us and under a light, the wingspan was about 3 or 4 feet, it was huge. Some where climbing along the roof and another 2
Lion at night
Taken from the night safari bus as we passed seemed to be fighting, the place was quite small and very scary - we didn't stay in too long! After this we got back on the bus and went through 'Africa', 'South America' and the 'Rainforest'. We saw elephants and hippos to name a few. After this Ken and Carole decided to head off, it was close to 9pm and they had a flight a 4am to catch. We said our goodbyes and had already swapped contact information, something which might come in use when we hit LA in 8 months! We stayed to watch the 'Creatures of the Night show' and it was very good. The girl that presented it was very funny and got the crowd involved. We saw owls flying about and learnt about night vision and we saw ferrets that did recycling by putting the correct litter in the correct coloured bin. The highlight was when the presenter said an animal had gone missing and everyone had to look under thier seats (all part of the show). From some seats about 3 rows from the front they pulled out a 6 foot long python! After this we got a cab back to our hostel, then made
Local food in Singapore
Adam's rice, pork and 'fish balls' from koptiem a late night stop at a 24 hour McDonalds before using the internet to email home (just incase the train de-railing made the news!). We then headed back for our first experience of sleeping in a dorm, which involved us walking in and falling asleep on our bunk beds...
We slept in till 11am the next day and the dorm was almost empty when got up. We were moving to the double room today as it wasn't much different in price and we could safely charge ipods, cameras, phones and laptops without having to show them off to everyone. The room wasn't ready until midday so we used an internet cafe for an hour then got our room. The last 5 nights we had either used shared bathrooms or slept on trains or boats, so having a good shower, shave and clean was a good feeling (even though the bathroom was seperated from the room by a shower curtain!)! We headed out to the cheap local food place and ate some genuine local food to balence out our McDonalds from yesterday. After this we got the MRT to Sentosa Island. Sentosa is a small entertainment island off the
The Merlion
Not sure who invented this 'freak' creature but its everywhere! south of Singapore, it costs s$3 to enter but this includes free monorail onto the island and back. We wanted to visit Underwater Water which was similar to Sea World's that are everywhere else. This place, like the safari, was really well done. First we went to 'touching pools' where you could feed and touch star fish, small fish and some very very big Stingrays. After this we saw some big crabs and coral areas with fish that looked very similar to our scuba diving a few days back. Then we got to the big glass tunnel, this thing had a moving floor you could stand on and enjoy the ride. We saw more stingrays, some big fish, and lots of sharks. The place also had jelly fish on display in neon tanks so you could see them, sea horses and some tiny glowing shrimp called sea angels. We found out our ticket included free tickets to a show called 'Meet the Dolphins' - the last show was in 30 minutes. We got a bus across the island and arrived in time to get front row seats. The show was very good and the dolphins jumped hoops, balenced balls and
Sharks
Underwater World, Sentosa island, Singapore 'flipper walked' on the water. Also 3 lucky guests got to get in and swim with the them. After the show we walked to the islands monorail and got to see some of the nice man made beaches on the island - and an even bigger Merlion statue. We then got the monorail and the MRT back to our room. We hadn't wrote up any blog for about 7 days so we got started on that and put everything we owned on charge in the room while we did it! After lots of writing up we headed out for some food then went to a pub around the corner called 'Prince of Wales' to watch Chelsea vs Newcastle, seems its all come down to the last game after a Chelsea win. It was gone 1am after it finished so we headed back to bed and Adam sorted out the last weeks photos and Nick fell asleep.
We were up and checked out of the Inn Crowd hostel by 11am on our last day in Singapore. They offered bag storage and use of the facilities for $6 each, with some charm we managed to just store our bags at
no cost. We popped to the internet to read of the cyclone that wasn't too far away in Burma, doesn't look like it will effect us. We popped to the local food cafe 'Koptiem' and got ourselves some rice and chicken dishes for less than £1, we had eaten here everyday. We picked up some bottles of lemon ice tea (new addiction) and headed to the new Suntec Shopping Centre. The mall was really nice and new but the main thing we went to see was the 'Fountain of Wealth' - apparently the worlds 'largest' fountain. We are unsure what 'largest' means but it certainly wasn't as high or as long as some we have seen! Apparently bathing in it brings good wealth, but we didn't have the time or the belief. Next stop was the new Singapore Flyer, which has only been open 2 months. It is almost indentical to the London Eye - except bigger and probably with a better view! We could see the whole sky line and saw a new football pitch that had been built floating on the water, which had a stand built on land to watch it! We could also see lots of
Meet the Dolphins
Also found on Sentosa Island development including the building of a new casino due to open in 2010. The wheel took 30 minutes to go around and we only had 2 other people in our large capsule. At the bottom there was a flight simulator similar to the one on Kypton Factor (anyone remember that program?), you got to fly between 2 airports of your choice, but sadly it was too expensive. We walked back via Suntec and found a large sports play area inside, Singapore had just won the youth games for 2010. The place was free and you could shoot basketball, play table tennis or football and even compete on nintendo wii's. We walked back to our bags at the hostel via some Bugis street market. We grabbed the bags and headed to the MRT to catch a train to the airport, which cost less than £1! We had arrived 4 hours early but easily checked in and got into departures. We had been budgeting the last few days so we didn't have to get anymore currency out here, and made it to the airport with enough for a burger king each and 2 games of pool! The airport was just as impressive
Fountain of Wealth in Suntect Plaza, Singapore
Apparently the 'largest' fountain in the world?! as our last visit and we played pool while live music performed, and made good use of the free internet found everywhere. We got on our Quantas flight at 9pm and left on time. The food was ok (beef and rice) but the entertainment was rubbish, it kept skipping and showed boring programs on big drop down screens - luckily it was only 2.5 hour flight. We arrived into Bali at midnight and had to get a visa on arrival, get through customs, and get our bags. Getting all this done must have taken less than 20 minutes and the nice customs staff even let us pop through with no visa to get money out an ATM to pay for the visas - easiest arrive so far by a mile! We got a prepaid taxi to a street called Poppies Gang 1 - where most of the cheap accomodation is. The other cheap accomodation is on Poppies Gang 2! We found a cheap hotel that was still open (1am now) and they gave us a free drink when we checked in. We found our room, put on the aircon, and then fell asleep.
We ended up sleeping until
Singapore Flyer
Struggled to get it all in one photo! 1am - oops! We gave some laundry to reception and headed out to explore our new location. We are staying in Kuta, its on the south side of Bali and the main tourist/backpacker area, and was also the victim of suicide bombings in 2002 and 2005. We had some diving text books, a lonley planet for SE Asia and some other books we wanted to sell, but this seems to be the only place where book shops won't buy from us - maybe Sydney will be better. We got some food from the restaurant opposite our hotel then walked around Poppies 1 and 2, there are mostly filled with clothes and gift shops. After a quick stop back at the room to drop off the books we headed the other way down the beach, here we found a water park called Waterbom and some shopping centres. We walked back along the beach and watched the surfers, the waves were really big and lots of people seemed to be learning. Surfboards are availible for hire all over the beach, and it seems to be all everyone does here, so we decided we would attempt to learn tomorrow. We had been told
Singapore Flyer Capsule
We only had 4 people in ours and the views were great! lessons were expensive and what they taught you only took a few minutes, followed by hours or days of practice before you can learn more. With this in mind we headed to the internet cafe to find some tutorials to save money on lessons! We found some good ones and also looked at campervans for when we arrive in Australia in a weeks time (we dont know if we want to get a bus and hostels or use a campervan yet). After this we went for some food and had a funny mix up, Adam thought he had ordered a club sandwhich, but a taco filled with some green gunk arrived instead - it would do. We popped to the shop for some waters for our fridge (what a luxury!) then watched tv and went to bed early ready for our surfing antics tomorrow.
For our first day of surfing we got up at 10 and checked out the breakfast included in our room costs. It was pretty good and we had banana pancakes and balinese tea. After this we headed down to the beach to get some surfboards, the beach is lined with locals renting out boards
View over Singapore
Check out the floating football pitch! for about £5 per day or £2 for a few hours. We opted for 3 hours and the guy checked them over and waxed them before giving them to us, Nick got a decent longboard (good for beginers) and Adam got a slightly smaller and cooler looking board. We spent sometime practicing padddling on our boards and body surfing some waves in towards the shore, harder then it sounds. The waves were really big and it was quite scary how many people were about, its easy to see how accidents happen! After about 20 minutes Adam caught a really big wave and rode it as far as he could, he didn't have much control and ended up washed up on the beach, with the surf board practically snapped in half - oops! About 1 foot from the end it had broken off and looked like a 'write off' as far as we were concerned! Adam told Nick the news and we decided to go tell them (rather than never go back!). The guy called his boss out the sea and he assesed the damage, the guy said he could repair it and we should pay him 150k (thats less than
Serious waves!
Perhaps not the best conditions for learning to surf - but good fun! £8!). Seemed very cheap to us, we didn't complain, and the rental guy came to our hotel to collect the money. This was a minor set back in our mission to learn to surf, within 30 minutes we found a quieter patch with some ever so slightly smaller waves - and a new rental guy! We spent the next 3 hours in the sea catching the occasional wave and managing to stay on some, although not standing up yet. One of the hardest things was getting back out into the sea with all the big waves coming at you, you have the either float over the unbroken ones or 'duck' through the broken ones. We drifted a long way and had a nice walk to give back the boards (in one piece this time!). We headed back for a shower then went back to the same place we ate yesterday. They managed to take Adam's order correct this time, but the kitchen cooked the wrong food, won't be going back there haha. We headed back to the beach for late afternoon and relaxed on our towels until the sun went down. The beach was full of locals selling things including
Danger!
Too many surfers in the water for any swimming! massages, pedicures, tatoos, kites, ice creams and even giant pea shooters and bows and arrows. We saw some italian men get in a right mess by joking about with the massage girls, they ended up getting almost every treatment and did't want any of it, then when all the women (about 5 of them) were begging for more and more money they had to run off the beach! We headed back to the room and watch a new film called 'The Number 23' that was on a movie channel, then we popped out for some food and headed to sleep after a hard day of attempted surfing. We had some aching muscles, sore ribs from laying on the board, some potentail sun burn and Adam had to pick the fiberglass out of his hand from the surfboard breaking incident! Most of the Bali photos are below all this text due to lots of pictures!...
The last few weeks have flown by and it doesn't seem long since we were in Bangkok. We really enjoyed Singapore and it was nice to be in a big city for the first time in a while. Bali seems pretty relaxed, we have 4
Surfboard rentals all over the beach!
Not so good friends with Adam anymore... more days here to work on our surfing and sun tans! After this we fly to Sydney to start the next big step in our trip - the east coast of Australia.
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Adam Gibson and Nick Burke
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Jane B
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Fantastic pictures, glad you liked Singapore, changed a lot since I was there. The pictures from Bali are great. Weather here been hot for a week now, up in the 70's, only problem is still have to go to work not sit on a beach like you guys. Can't wait for more updates from Aus.