Singapore

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A few reasons why we visited Singapore, it was close to where we were but the main reason was we wanted to bring back a quicker pace into our lives after living the 'island time' for awhile. The huzzle and buzzle atmosphere was not something we missed but we were craving for modern amenities and there might be reasons why. We came across a page titled "Life on the road" in the lonely planet that we have briefly read before our trip. We skimmed it again and we started laughing to ourselves and realized we have experienced 99.9% of what the book listed.

You might have a good laugh so we decided to quote the page:

Life on the Road:
Welcome to your new life. The roosters have been crowing all night, the screaming motorcycles are seemingly doing circles around your bed and the day has already reached a boil. You climb out from under your mosquito net and head down to the shared toilet at the end of the hall. The mirror is too short, the sink is too low and the whole room needs to be sprayed down with bleach. But this is your second week on the road and you've stopped noticing grout. The toilet is a squat and you precariously balance over the target area. As usual you forgot your toilet paper, so you scoop some water with a shallow bowl from the nearby basin to 'wipe'. Then you take several more scoops of water to 'flush' the toilet and rinse... Now it is time for a shower (cold water for this penny-pincher), a powdering (keeps you cool and sweet smelling and a desperate search for clean clothes. Today is the day you pack up and move to the next town. Arriving at the destination station, the bus is flanked by touts all thirsty for your business. First you haggle the transport price to the guesthouse. The guesthouse has a shady yard with chickens scratching around and half dressed babies playing in the dirt, but the room is dank and noisy, so you thank the testy desk clerk and set off down the road. You use your budget senses to sniff out the best score in town and in a few hours, you're camped out in the shade with a steamy bowl of noodles and a sweaty bottle of beer. Beats the wage-slave life. (Lonely Planet Southeast Asia on a shoestring 13th Edition, 2006)

Now you know why we were on edge and craving comfortable surroundings:

We have no photos for Singapore because we were busy shopping for a new camera. Singapore is a clean, busy and westernized city. The buildings are further apart so there are more green spaces compared to other cities even compared to cities in Canada. Singapore was not the cheapest place and for the most part prices are similar to Canada. However you can still find cheap eateries. In China town there is a building filled with hawker stalls serving chinese food. I have never seen hawker stalls so clean! We got there the stalls were shutting down and every stall was being disinfected. We had really good dumplings and it was CHEAP!

Singapore is a great place to walk around. There were free live music by the river organized by an association to give new artists a chance to present his/her talent. Transportation was pretty convenient, buses and the subway passes by all the tourist sites and good restaurants/stalls. Definitely lots of shopping can be done in Singapore but most clothing prices are similar to Canada so we didn't really buy much. However there is a market that sales cheaper clothing and hawkers are not as pushy and irritating. We got a nice dose of huzzle and buzzle for a few days and with a new camera we moved on to Borneo.

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