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Published: November 1st 2007
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Hello again!
From Bali we flew to KL in order to get a bus to Singapore, which worked out cheaper than than flying direct, to be honest we didn't mind spending a few days back in Kuala Lumpur and took the opportunity to chill out with a film at the cinema, then stuffed ourselves to bursting point with a good curry and cheesey naan from our favourite indian restaraunt!
After our veg out day, it was time to get back on another bus for 7 hours and head south to Singapore. Upon arriving at passport control across the boarder and looking a little bit lost at the bus terminal, our impression of the friendliness of Asian people was supported once again by a complete stranger who gave us $2 to get the bus on from the boarder to the centre! We arrived at the bus terminal in Little India in central Singapore with some really nice local men who offered us tonnes of advice about the city and helped us through the confusion over which bus to get at the boarder crossing. It turned out that we were planning to stay in a guest house right near their house
so they showed us the way, which meant we were able to take things in a bit more and not worry about finding our way. Little India was quite how we expect India to actually be: hundreds of people everywhere and pretty chaotic, even more so at the moment as it's the Hindu festival month of Diwali. We saw a notice for our guesthouse and said goodbye to our new friends before realising that it is currently closed for renovations! So we headed off to a different guesthouse that we had recommened to us about 20 mins away. It was full. So was the one next door. We weren't having much luck! Finally we arrived at a hotel with one vacancy and shocked though we were at the price of a double room, we took it for fear of not being able to find anywhere else. It was worth every penny though and we enjoyed spending the night in a clean, comfortable room with hot water and air conditioning!
The next day we got up early and decided to take a walk about the city centre. After a quick ride on the pristine underground we stepped out in to
Chinatown and wandered around Thian Hock Keng Temple (the "Temple of Heavenly Happiness"), the nicest chinese temple we've seen yet. We walked on through the Central Business District and were made to feel the size of ants by the jungle of towering sky scapers, and hundreds of Singaporeans all suited and booted for another day at the office. Our walk then took us across Singapore River to the Colonial District where we stopped for an hour or so at the Asian Civilisations Museum. After the museum we walked past Parliament House (not all that impressive really!) and the Supreme court, with its green lead dome, and City Hall with its rows of collumns at the entrance. As we looked across the park we could see the twin spikey domes of the Espalande Theatres on the Bay. After a short walk along the water front our next stop was the world famous Raffels Hotel where we were almost tempted to try the legendary Singapore Sling... almost. We then made our way up to the Arab Quarter with it's funky little bars and Majid Sultan before heading back to Little India where we saw the Veeramakaliamman Temple with it's lotus flower shaped
roof before having the best curry we've ever had!
For our second day we decided to check out the shopping Mecca that is Orchard Road, a street lined with mall after mall of designer clothes shops. We then walked on to Fort Canning park, then on to the Raffles Hotel again to take a look at the museum inside (we were just curious to see what all the fuss was about really!). After that it was time to make our way to the airport in time for our flight to Brisbane! We both really enjoyed the short stop in Singapore and we're sorry that we didn't have more time to spend there. It's definately a place we would like to revisit, and like KL it is definately a place where the Britishness can still be felt, so we felt very much at home. The city is so clean (not surprising since you can receive a $500 fine if caught chewing gum, which is illegal!) and well organised, which means that it lacks the certain charms and characteristics of other Asian cities we've seen, but fascinating none the less. So sadly we say goodbye to Asia, but now its onto
the outback of Australia! Bonza!
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Cashy
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Singapore Sling
Hey guys - glad you enjoyed Singapore - but how could you not try the Sinapore Sling?? (other than the price tag!!) I can feel you getting closer!! Have you looked into flights from south island? if you give me your details I may be able to get you $25 dollar flights from Christchurch on 20th. Are you doing the East Coast of Oz? Speak soon