Botanic Gardens, Bus Tour & Raffles

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Geo: 1.35574, 103.986

Sadly the last day of our holiday down under. As our flight home isn't til midnight, we decided not to waste the day, so checked out at 11am and had our bags stored at the hotel until the transfer bus picks us up at 8pm. Caught the Singapore Air complimentary tour bus around the city, stopping off at the world class Botanic Gardens. We used a complimentary voucher to enter the Orchid gardens (the biggest orchid collection in the world) well worth a visit, although by the time we left we were melting with the heat! It was an immaculate and beautiful garden (with comments like that we must officially be old!) We spent a couple of hours there only as we had one more thing on our agenda which was to visit the famous Raffles hotel (Sir Stamford Raffles was the founder of the modern day Singapore and first set foot here in 1819) so back on the tour bus, which ran every 20 mins, to this, our final destination. It was certainly a grand building and you could imagine it back in its time being a haven for the very wealthy (Tim and I wouldn't have got a look in then, especially in our shorts and flip flops) - today the site is filled mainly with upmarket shops. Although we didn't have a famous Singapore Sling, we did stop for a cold beer and a coke in the courtyard. We completed the remainder of the bus tour and spent the rest of the afternoon by the hotel pool relaxing with our books in the sunshine, dreading the long flight home, the cold (and probably wet) weather on arrival in the UK and the prospect of work on Monday morning ... Roll on our next holiday!

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Comments

[Mum and Dad R]

Unfortunately all good things come to an end, it's been wonderful reading all of your blogs as you travelled around Oz. Hope your flight home is not too tiring , safe landing and welcome home.