CIVILIZATION!!!

Asia » Singapore
February 8th 2011

Published: February 8th 2011

Oh my, I LOVE Singapore. They have hot water! And trains that run on time! And toilets that not only can you sit on, but also flush! In fact, I was so enamoured by the toilets in the airport I spent so long in there that Andy was asked to move on (loitering is not smiled upon in Singapore). I’m slightly ashamed to say that all the intrepid traveller in me evaporated as my plane touched down and we went and had pizza for lunch. It was bloody marvellous!
We were meeting Jen and Krish, who are having a travelling honeymoon, at a backpackers (pillows and toast) in China town that was only one month old and beautiful - fresh white linen and aircon for the first time (so consequently slept in most mornings). When Jen and Krish (or Jish from now on) got there we hit out for Little India and went and ate curry off Banana leaves, from the ingeniously named Banana Leaf Café. The curry was ok - the service was terrible, I’d say to put your LP aside and go pick somewhere else. The walking around Little India was fascinating though - it was a Sunday night and all the men seem to take to the streets and stand around chatting with each other and drinking either tea or beer. And when I say all the men, I mean All the men - thousands of them, the only women we saw were working in shops. Oh, and I got a brilliant pair of trousers (there are people with bigger than 16inch hips in Singapore). We then hit Orchard Road to see all the Christmas lights.
It felt so weird having the run up to Christmas in hot countries - especially in Asia, imagine Jingle Bells sung in Asian Karaoke style if you can…

The next day we hit the malls, me and Jen managed to ditch the boys in the Apple store and escape to the clothes shops. Strangely, they didn’t seem to mind… Singapore is renown for its shopping malls - and they are huge. So huge that you can get lost, ours had 4 basement levels and it took us ages to relocate the chocolate tasting shop we’d spied the night before. And we found a M&S!!! Oh, happy chocolate biscuit days.

Then it was off to the night safari, which is terribly touristy - but good fun. Not being a fan of making animals perform, I wasn’t overly keen on the ‘show’ - but the animals seemed to be very well looked after and some of them refused to do their ‘bit’ which was quite funny. The really great part was walking round the park afterwards, we saw Lions (roary), Rhinos (wrinkly) and leopards (spotty). My favorite had to be the tigers though - they are just so huge and powerful, and were about 5inches away from us. Oh - and I was very brave (much braver than Jish) and managed to walk all the way through the bat enclosure where bats are flying at you - and those were some big ass bats. We spent so long at the tigers cage that we almost missed the last bus into town and ended up getting dinner at 1am, Singapore is another city that never sleeps so this was not a problem.

We decided that our bank balances couldn’t handle another day in the Malls so we headed out for the beach on the little island of Sentosa. It’s a man made beach, and therefore is lovely (Indonesia really does seem to have changed my opinions on going back to basics), the weather was a bit iffy to start off with but after a spot of lunch the sun threw it’s hat on and we had a lovely afternoon chilling out and swimming in the warm sea.
That night Andy surprised Jen and Krish by taking them out to dinner for their wedding present. Somehow, I got to go too! Have a look at some of the photos - it was an all you can eat buffet style place. But not like you imagine a buffet. They literally had every type of cuisine and some of it they cooked it fresh for you. After a straight month of fried rice it was like landing in paradise. For anybody who’s not that into food I’m about to wax lyrical for the next paragraph or so, so feel free to skip over it!

We started off with Lobster (as you do) plus some shrimps and crab claws (oh mama!), accompanied of course by Bubbly. Then we set out to work our way round the room - so there was sushi (I skipped quite a bit of this, as did Jish but Andy went for it with the raw fish - brave boy) then there was the salad bar (salad! That’s not washed in dodgy water!). The look I got from the boys when I got excited about salad could have turned a girl to stone - but even they had to admit it looked good. Then it was time for a Dim Sum round, followed by Chinese dishes if you wished. Then there was curry, I skipped the curry, there is only so far my stomach will stretch and I was sitting looking at the dessert wall… Then the boys (who seem to be able to eat at a much faster rate than me) found the British roast section (I should point out that the place was so large there were signposts to the different areas!). Me and Jen then did our bit for women everywhere and attacked the pudding wall. They would make you up an ice cream - I.e. mash flavors in that you wanted - I went for adding nuts, dried fruit and rum to vanilla - yummy! I am slightly ashamed to admit that we had 5 puddings each. In my defense, they were like mini puddings - so it’s really not as bad as it sounds. And on my way to the loo I struck gold and found the cheese section. You can’t get cheese in Asia, but here you could get all the old favorites so we found a little extra room, hidden deep in the depths of our stomachs and managed to squeeze in a little bit. It would have been rude not to. At this point I seriously thought I might burst and no one seemed to be able to find a way to move further than the hotels lounge so there was nothing for it but to collapse onto a couch and wash it all down with a Singapore Sling - when in Rome!

We were all very grateful to Andy for treating us lowly backpackers to such a fantastic meal, sadly, in a horribly cruel joke by the cosmos, Andy got sick almost the min we left. We all were joking with him that it was because he’d eaten too much (which was true), but once he turned an interesting shade of green and had to be put to bed we all began to feel a bit mean… Turns out he was pretty poorly and was In bed for the next two days swallowing antibiotics - then he turned a really worrying shade of green and so I took him to hospital. He was too sick to appreciate it, but the hospital services in Singapore are fantastic. Very, very efficient- he was triaged immediately, sent to the fevers ward (where we all had to wear masks - a little scary), then seen by a nurse in 5mins and a doctor in 10. If you’re going to get sick in Asia try to do it while you’re in Singapore.

The upshot of all this was that I ended up spending an extra few days in Singapore, chilling out and trying to hunt down the Vietnamese embassy. I have walked many, many miles in Singapore to try and find the embassy - the website lists it as being near a train station that hasn’t been built, on a road that doesn’t exist. So no embassy. The website looks very well done though!
So it was, once Andy could walk again we booked ourselves on the overnight bus to Kuala Lumpur and went out to drink to his new found health.

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