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Published: April 22nd 2009
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After our last blog we headed back to the local town and waited for a day for our bus to Mersing. We stayed on another beach called Telok Champadek in a cute little guesthouse with a balcony and a monkey walkway - they were everywhere getting into mischief and stealing the rubbish!! We also saw a huge black squirrel which we have decided is a Giant Malaysian Squirrel as no one can tell us what it was!
We really liked the beach here as it was quiet and had lovely white sand - however the choice for food was not too good and we were forced into Macdonalds two days in a row… there is basically two drive thru’s right on the beach - KFC and Macdonalds and that’s about it!
Next morning we left for Mersing and Tioman Island (when we bought the ticket for the boat the man asked us for our names and passport numbers as a ferry crashed in December and people went missing - it was only then we remembered seeing this on the news) . We had a cute little room right on the beach (with a nice big spider in the bathroom)
and we enjoyed the duty free shops on the island - one litre (…not 75cl) bottle of vodka for 7 pound! Unfortunately it rained on our first day there and we only managed a stroll down the beach we were on… the second day was much nicer but we didn’t get up to much apart from enjoying our last beach day and sunset. Our plan was to stay longer and see more of the island that South Pacific was filmed on but all the accommodation was full due to the weekend - we have had the same all across Malaysia.
We saw Deal or No Deal on TV in Malaysia too - the top prize works out at about 20 thousand pounds (100 thousand ringett) and this got us thinking about how much money people earn and their options for travel etc. A taxi man asked us where we were from and was interested in where we had been and how much it had cost - when we told him how much Tanya had spent he said it would take him roughly 20 years to save the same. What adds to this craziness is that Singapore is so close
and yet so far in terms of the cost of living… and also explains why Malaysia is so full at the weekends!
So… after feeling a bit ill for a couple of weeks (as mentioned before) and feeling like we have been moving constantly for 6months (seeking the cheapest options and staying in the cheapest places) we headed to Singapore with six nights booked in an lovely, posh, expensive hotel! Traders Hotel is great - we have a swimming pool and gym and have taken full advantage of both since we arrived (with a bit of room service too - it was tasty and even better in bed)!
We both like Singapore - it has given us a completely different view of Asia and allowed us to experience the more expensive side of the continent - in the supermarket the other day we saw milk for 5pound, tinned tuna for 9pound, beef for 50 quid and cigarettes and alcohol is untouchable!! It’s actually been really good for us as we have been very healthy all week and we are slowly getting used to England prices again!! Also we have both been enjoying the novelty of being able to
drink the water from the taps again… and we can brush our teeth whilst listening to the TV as we have speakers in our bathroom!
We went to the Botanic Gardens on Sunday and sweated bucket loads walking around the huge gardens - its so hot here! We saw turtles swimming in the lake, squirrels in the trees, lizards in the rainforest section and many beautiful orchids in the Singapore Orchid Garden.
We visited the zoo on Monday and Pilch got to stroke a Mouse Deer and was chased around by a purple butterfly! We had read it was a world class zoo but some of the enclosures were disappointingly small for such big animals… however the proboscis monkeys they have there are amazing!
Today we went on the Singapore flyer to get an amazing view of the city - it’s higher than the London Eye and has just celebrated its first birthday. We saw on the news yesterday that it broke down in December and left people stranded for six hours! Our flight however went smoothly and we are just heading back to our hotel for a few last hours sunbathing poolside before our journey
to Kuala Lumpur tomorrow…. Oh, and we just booked another posh hotel there too! Oops! Finishing our travelling in styleeeeee!! Going to get a Singapore Sling tonight and wave goodbye to Singapore!!
See you all soon…. xx
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