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Published: August 10th 2005
Three quokkas
One has a joey in a pouch - ahhh!
Hello!
We've had a great week since the last blog. We flew to Perth in a wee plane that reminded me of Jimbo (a cartoon from when I was wee) - it was small, round and noisy, and had to stop to refuel half way to Perth cos it wasn't big enough to get the whole way on one tank of petrol... We stayed in Fremantle, a town about 18k out of Perth, rather than Perth city, as we were a bit bored of bit cities. Fremantle turned out to be a good choice - a bohemian sea side town with lots of old buildings, good pubs and excellent fish and chips. Highlights were going to an Aussie Rules footie game (very weird sport - 22 on a team, a round field, and 4 25 minute quarters...) and a day on Rottnest Island, where we hired bikes and cycled round the island, and got to know the local wildlife, the quokka. The quokka is like a cross between and rat and a kangaroo, and turned out to be very tame. Graeme bought a packet of crisps in the shop, and a quokka followed him round begging like a dog for
Graeme and the quokka
Just before it jumped! a crisp, then jumped onto his lap when we sat down - I've never seen him move so quickly!!
On Monday we flew to Singapore, arriving in the 30 degree heat of the afternoon. We're staying in a great hostel in Little India, which not only gives us free breakfast but free internet too :-)
Singapore is a really nice city- clean, easy to get round, and the people are very friendly. Especially the ones who work as tailors. In 48 hours we have been accosted by around 10 tailors: "you want to buy a suit? I'm a very good tailor". Sales pitches have ranged from the bizarre: "where you from... Scotland... Ahh, Ally McCoist?! He very good Scotsman, he drink lots of beer" to the plain weird: "let me show you my samples... here is a card from a happy customer in Scotland (brings out Christmas card from some Edinburgh city council employee)... here is a photo of another happy customer (brings out photo of himself with Bill Clinton, of all people!)". Needless to say we haven't bought any made to measure suits. We believe they're much cheaper in Thailand!
Yesterday was Singapore's 40th birthday -
it's 40 years since it became an independent country. There was a big fireworks display at the esplanade last night, so we went and joined the (very well behaved) crowds. Infortunately the fireworks turned out to be a bit disappointing, we were expecting a huge spectacular display, but it only lasted about 7 minutes then everyone went home...
Tonight we went to the night markets near our hostel to do some shopping before we leave for Malaysia tomorrow. Graeme really wanted to try Durian fruit, a tropical fruit that smells like rotting flesh "tastes like heaven, smells like hell" one local told us. Well... Certainly smells like hell. Imagine salad that has gone off in the fridge, 3 weeks ago... You're getting close. As for the taste - things that smell like rotting flesh, well, they have the consistency and taste of rotting flesh too. DISGUSTING!!
Till the next time
Jo and Graeme x
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