Singapore Sling

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We left Melaka and took the bus on the Friday to Singapore. As usual the hotel were a little vague in the correct bus times, the lady had told us 8am, 9am, 10am, then 5pm. When we asked her on the morning we were leaving she said "I think 8 and 9am" which put us in a bit of a pickle. We got her to call a taxi and managed to get on the 9:30am (don't ask). We arrived in Singapore about 1:30 pm and instead of being dropped at the bus station (where one might imagine oneself to be dropped) we were deposited on a random bit of wasteground which turned out, quite luckily, to be close to our hotel.

I was unsure as to what I would make of Singapore as I had heard mixed reports. A lot of people compare it to Hong Kong but apart from the fact that it is an Island, it has strong european links because of colonisation and it is in SE Asia there are not that many more similarities. By this I mean that both HK and Singapore have different qualities. We arrived at the hotel and I was immeditely impressed, during the 4 hours in the internet cafe Joff had managed to find a good deal at a brand new hotel, we arrived on the 3rd day after it had opened. The room was lovely and obviously brand new, you could even say that we were luxuriating! We decided to shower, do some unpacking and Joff wanted to get money out etc and change some money.

We headed out for dinner, having selected a place called Jaggy's in Little India, it was our intention to try all sorts of international food types in Singapore. When we walked in the smell was amazing, it was just a small place but came highly recommended. I don't know whether it was because it was so long since we had eaten curry that we appreciated the food more but it was truely delicious. There was a local guy who could see that we were a little lost so he suggested that we get a couple of side dishes: butter chicken, dhal and chickpea curry and then order some chipattis and naan. The naan was Kashmiri and was lovely and the rest of the food was so tasty. We liked it so much that we went back on the Monday before we left for lunch! The good thing about ordering side dishes meant that we weren't too full so had eaten just enough.

We decided to walk back to the hotel and through the streets, there are beautiful shop houses in Singapore which are terraced, with a shop traditionally at the front with residential housing above. These have been immaculately maintained and some have been converted into lovely houses. There is also a lot of green space despite it being a big city with a lot of highrise but the main thing that has clearly been passed on by the Brits is that cars stop to let you accross the zebra crossing (amazing and something we have not experienced in 3 months). We came upon a wine bar and we sat out on the street and drank a nice bottle of red before heading back to the hotel. All in all a lovely evening - liking Singapore. Pleasantly surprised, I suppose after the comments I had heard previously.

The next morning we headed out to get some breakfast, we ended up at the mall and took our time having a wander as it was lovely and cool. The buildings around the city centre are quite stunning and range from mosques in the Arab Quarter, to traditional colonial style buildings at the City Hall, Hindu temples, Chinese temples in Chinatown and amazing mega structures such as the Marina Sands resort. The harbourfront has been recently developed and the Marina sands is the hotel which stands in the middle of it. A truely wonderful piece of architecture even if it looks like a barge stranded on top of three towers.

We wandered around the harbour for some time as there was a nice breeze and it was very pleasant walking and looking at everything. We then headed over to Chinatown to get the weekly dose of temples, something I shall not miss about SE Asia and then headed back to the hotel to freshen up. We had organised to meet Jim for dinner, we met Jim at the Terracotta Warriors in Xian back in February and we had stayed in touch and he had since moved to Singapore. We met close to China town in a french restaurant which has been built into some of the shop fronts, it was lovely to sit outside and we had a lovely evening and it was great to catch up with Jim! Good food, great wine, too much wine probably. Thanks Jim!!

The following day was a bit of a lazy day and we checked out onward travel for Monday and perpared for heading to Oz. I had mixed feelings about leaving SE Asia as we had experienced so many wonderful things in 3 months. It seemed like such a short time since Beijing yet we had done so much. I have no doubt that we will come back here, we have loved this part of the adventure. Things however that no matter how many times I come back will still astound me:
1. How you can sleep anywhere at any time.
2. How everyone in SE Asia wears flipflops but no one can walk in them and they still scuff their feet as we were taught not to do as children.
3. How no one knows what a queue means and barging in front of a polite British couple who know what the word queue means is perfectly normal. I have come to believe that in a number of languages there is not even a word for queue so that may explain a few things!

We had quite a productive day on the Monday, packing, sending some stuff home from the post office, swapping books. We headed to the airport early even though the flight was at 10pm. The flight was a bit rubbish really. We had a QF flight number which is Quantas flight number but that route is operated by JetStar. At the airport you go through security before the flight boards, which is good because you don't get the Heathrow situation where everyone is going though security once they have checked their bags. However you can't take water through and there is no where to buy it at the gate. If we had known this in advance we would have taken an empty bottle and filled it up. Hindsight is great isn't it?! Anyway we were held at the gate for ages with no idea when we would leave as there was a problem with the plane. We finally boarded and because it is a low cost airline only the people with QF codeshare are entitled to food thus meaning that it takes ages for them to serve food and drinks because everyone is paying money and getting change back. Also the problem with the plane was described in great detail by the captain which put my mind at rest no end! Apparently a hole in the wing is pretty critical but "they seem to have patched things up - so we'll be leaving soon!" We finally got our food and water about an hour after they started serving but they tried to charge Joff. We had gotten 2 aisle seats so I didn't have to sit in the middle and the stewardesses had assumed that I was with the guy next to me not with Joff. So they gave the guy his "free" meal, tried to charge Joff. Realizing their mistake, gave Joff his meal and tried to charge the guy next to me 25$ for his meal. He was really happy about that as you can imagine. Never flying JetStar ever again.

I wasn't loving my isle seat really as I had the hairyest and biggest man in the world on the seat in front of me (having already lost a bet that a particularly large woman was in fact a man and owing Joff 1 bottle of wine, was this gods way of payback?), he seemed to be shipping his Philipino bride plus the rest of her family to Australia. When I say hairyest Joff recounted a story from James's stagdo about a transvestite and suggested he may have a solution. I guess that is something James and Ben will appreciate but really nothing for you to worry about Meredith! Anyway, I was trying to fill in my customs form and he kept pushing his chair back into my head. I wouldn't have minded but my seat wouldn't budge. I realised quite quickly though that if I had my reading light on, it shone directly into his eyes (I am going to hell) which made him put his seat forward and ultimatelty change seats with the aforementioned bride.

We had a brief stop at Darwin and then got back on the same plane, same seat and headed to Cairns, we arrived on time despite the delays and seemed to sail through passport control, customs and baggage pickup quite easily. I had heard horror stories about getting into Australia but it seemed to be fine. There was also a really cool little beagle dog that sniffed our bags. It even got up onto the trolley to make sure it had done the job properly.

We arrived at the hotel and although it was 10 am we were able to get into the room right away, which was a relief. Again Joff did a great job and we have a nice spacious room overlooking the pool!!! And it's a bargain too!

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Photos

Wandering round the Singapore Streets
Very humid!