$ingapore - the $ is compulsary

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Singapore was clean. And that's not a slur against other countries in south east Asia it's immaculate compared to most western places as well. It's illegal to sell or us chewing gum and the fines for littering are actually enforced here.

The country itself is tiny and the main city takes up a lot of it. Because of this it is very easy to control and the traffic and lack of crime shows. There are very few beggars and the like and because of this many travelers joke that Singapore is not actually part of south east Asia. Another reason for this is the obvious wealth. People are richly dressed and drive nice cars. All this to us meant that we would struggle to live on a budget here.

And get horribly depressed due to everyone looking so swish. I was already fed up of everything in my backpack. We have not had the budget to buy new clothes and despite Andy protesting that I have far too many clothes its miserable wearing the same things for months on end. Everything is worn, tatty and since we wash everything in sinks (yep we are that cheap) its all grubby. So we felt minging compared to all the locals.

We got ourselves booked into a hostel in little India and settled in as much as could. We were sharing an L shaped room that had 16 bunk beds crammed into it. Sharing a room with 14 strangers is an experience we had been trying to avoid for some time and managed it because a double room is normally cheaper than a dorm. We were by the door which lead to the shared toilets and showers down the hall but in all honesty it could have been worse. People were generally quiet (one night some people came back from a few drinks and sat outside making some noise for 20 minutes) and the place was clean an people seemed respectful of your space and privacy as much as was possible.

We endeavored to spend as little time in the room as possible but this became less likely as we found that the free Internet available was so fast and we soon got hooked on YouTube and getting new apps for the iPod. Later that day after a rest we did venture out for some food and found an Indian on the corner. This would give us a pretty bad first impression of Singapore cuisine.

It was very much a point and choose place and we opted for a chicken kebab and what we think was a vege-sausage. This came with a token gesture of salad and shredded chapati. All in all a pretty poor meal for two and it got worse when we found out the cost. It was 9 Singapore dollars which is about 5 pound. Suitably unimpressed we walked away from the smug woman who had served us and headed home.

It was awful! Now we are not fatties but it was a p$%!s(MISSING) take at the amount we given and to add insult to injury they served our two meals on the same plate. We did not hand over our $9 quietly.

We soon realised that we wouldn't be saving any money in Singapore and gave up trying. We went to a 711 and got some beer (4 cost another 5 pound) and some food as we were still hungry. That night we went to bed disheartened and realising we had to learn fast how to save money in such a comparatively expensive city.

We started this by going and buying a dozen eggs and using the hostels facilities to have scrambled egg on toast for breakfast. Good start. (actually really cheeky as I ended up rummaging around the back of the kitchen robbing butter and salt) We then walked to the second biggest attraction in Singapore - Orchard Road.

This was definitely not a backpacker friendly area but instead the posh shopping area where streets were lined with Gucci, D&G and other brands that had more relevance to Emma than me. Not only were the products expensive but the shops themselves seemed to have been designed to scream money at any passersby. We didn't even try and join the queue outside Gucci as the bouncer was already giving us dodgy looks.

Yep there was actually a queue to get into the massive gold Gucci shop. Now we know that we are really really lucky to have had the opportunity to visit so many countries and do so much since we have been away but standing outside that shop at that time I would have happily sold my soul and gotten what I could for Andy's in order to go shopping there.

We kept wandering up orchard road until eventually Emma could stand no more. All these shoes and bags and everything else so close but too far from our meager bank balance. We descended to the MRT station Singapore's subway.

Now this obviously was not just any subway. It was a Marks & Spencers subway. Everything was meticulously organised from the ticket system to the constant stream of on time trains. We were particularly impressed with the boarding diagram that looked like it had been copied from the pages of a biology book.We were really childish.

We got the subway to the city hall stop which was near the biggest attraction in Singapore - Raffles. Before getting there we were treated to a display in the station of BMXers spinning their bikes around. Above the station was the Espalande which was a theatre designed in the best traditions of modern art. Needless to say we had no idea what it was meant to be but it looked impressive which I think was the point. Next to this was the Merlion which we had some fun photographing. On the other side of the harbour was a boat on top of a building with trees growing on it. Not sure about why but we speculated end of the world scenarios where it may come in useful.

You have to look at the picture as it was really bizarre. It was 3 huge skyscrapers and then a boat balanced along the top with trees on it. We sat there for a good while seriously speculation whether it was something from 2012 and if the people of Singapore know something we dont...

This done we headed towards raffles wanting to stop first at a wishing fountain which is apparently the largest fountain in the world. I say apparently because when we got there it was off and the water reached just above our heads. We walked around it 3 times anyway and prayed for enough money to buy up all of orchard road. We are not materialistic or anything...

We couldn't put off raffles any longer and walked towards it. We had been agonising all day over what to do about this. We knew it was going to be expensive to get a Singapore sling here but also knew it was something everyone had to do once. Unfortunately this was not our time. The cost of a drink each was almost a days budget and we were already planning a big spend the next day as a treat. Actually stood outside the place we felt far to scruffy and disheveled to impose ourselves on the posh people inside. Promising ourselves we would come back at a later date (Once we had won the lottery of course.)
we turned our back on raffles and headed back to our hostel.

That night was an interesting one, Emma feeling sad about all the nice shoes and bags decided to indulge with a MacDonald and I somehow managed to end up with two meals in the Chinese place over the road. (Yeh you were dead sad about that little 'accident' you fatty) All of this aside the true culinary delight was going to happen in the most unexpected of places.

We went to the local 711 and found a mashed potato dispensing machine. Overcome by curiosity we decided to throw caution to the winds and get one. (living on the edge and all...) It came out the machine very liquidy and when a final gloop dispensed some brown gravy on the top we would have been hard pressed to imagine the taste sensation we were about to encounter.

It turned out to be smash. And as it solidified the gravy on top took shape and we got a waft of chicken gravy not dissimilar to Oxo. Now this could just be because we have been away for so long dreaming of roast dinners and sausage and mash by it was one of the tastiest things we had eaten in a while and definitely a highlight of our culinary exploits.

The next day we had a treat planned. We had been traveling for so long and not really gone truly overboard treating ourselves. Despite all this we were still over budget and whilst in Singapore saw the perfect opportunity to sample one of Singapores best offers. We went to the zoo.

We set off after our scrambled eggs and got the subway and then a bus to the zoo. We had read about this zoo and knew it was one of the best in the world. We paid for our ticket (£23 for both of us) and went in.

It seemed to be a very interactive zoo. There were lots of shows and all the feeding times were published so you could watch and in some cases take part in the mealtimes. It would take forever to list all the animals we saw that day so I will let the pictures do the talking and list some of the highlights.

The two shows we saw were the polar bear and splash. The polar bear was really impressive being only a few metres away and massive. Splash was a showcase of manatees, penguins and a sea lion. All of these performed the tricks expected of them and it was a really well put together show.

Andy really really loved the polar bear and turned into a giddy 7 year old kid for the whole show - that said I got a bit over excited about the penguins which were amazing! Oh and the mini ponies..oh and the meerkats - that resulted in us saying 'shiimples' (like the advert) for the next hour.

There was also an ecosystem setup in the middle of the zoo which was covered by a dome and housed a mixture of birds, bugs and mammals. This was really good to get immersed in and we saw small deers, bats, blue birds and lemurs all up close and personal n

Unfortunately the camera battery had started to flash and with our happy trigger finger it was soon gone. As such we have missed the Pygmy hippos and White tiger. Both of which seemed too tired for photos anyway.

The zoo had been really nice and apart from one frantic looking cheetah all the animals seemed happy. There was a family of chimps that we spent some time watching and some well looked after orangutans.

We left around 4 having fully exhausted our tram rides around and our legs in between this. We got the shuttle bus back and got it to drop us by an old shopping centre that was now used as a food hall serving up Indian fares. We filled up on biriyani and wandered back through the back streets to our hostel.

Well over budget anyway we bought a few beers and sat outside drinking them. We got an early night and were up bright and early the next morning for a quick breakfast before getting he subway to the airport.

Here we were ferried to the budget terminal (yes Singapore knows how to put you in your place) and grabbed a MacDonalds breakfast from a friendly woman called Alice - like the one in wonderland she told us - before heading off to Jakarta with no idea at all where we would end up

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Comments

[Gill & Kath]

"Kick a poo" joy juice, last time we logged on you were consuming gallons of lager. Food still looks dodgey, but your clearly having a fab time and seeing great things. I have just caught up on the whole month as we have not logged on for ages. Your Singapore photo's were great brought back good memorys for us. Pleased to say - you still look the same and we have not forgotten about you. Take care guy's - although we have not logged on we have been updated by the Calo's. Loads of love Gill and Kb xx