Singapore
Three nights in Singapore is just about enough I think. I hate wanting to leave a place, had we stayed another night or two then I think this may have been the case. It’s a great place but as it’s first up on the list of places we’re travelling to we have itchy feet and can’t wait to see more places.
When I left you a couple of days ago we had spent our first night getting eats in Chinatown and then had a few drinks in the lush Clarke Quay (always reminds me of ‘Clarkey’). Our second day, Saturday, started as a bit of a failure as we tried to get in for afternoon tea at Raffles hotel but unfortunately they were fully booked. We could see inside and it did look really nice but I don’t necessarily think it would have been one of my abiding memories of this trip, or even Singapore.
We continued walking towards Marina Bay and took in the sights, it a mega development area (reminded me of Salford Quays!) and home of the iconic ‘Merlion’ symbol of strength and fertility. After a good wander through the area, including much of the F1 street circuit, we went back to the hostel for a shower and a short sleep. Then it was time for the Singapore Night Safari, we had been recommended this as one of the things to see in Singapore. It was very good but as is the nature of night time activities, it can be rather dark and if the animals choose to hide behind a rock then they can be very difficult to see. There were a few good highlights though; it’s always cool to see lions and tigers wander around. They weren’t too shy! Pezza always likes the elephants (something about their trunks turns her on) and we were on the little tram moving through the enclosure when the biggest elephant decided to play games and hurled a stick (the size of your arm) into the tram and hit the bloke next to us in the face, drawing blood. I found this hilarious but the couple were none too pleased!
Aside from that, there was a top-class fire eating show and some minor confusion over the time we were being picked up. We spent the remainder of the evening locally in Little India at an Aussie backpacker bar before going for our evening meal at the 7 Eleven. Pezza had Mashed Potato out of a machine, I suppose it’s a step up from Mince Meat out of a dispenser from the 7 Eleven in Santa Cruz.
Sunday was our last day and still feeling touristy we went to Sentosa, the purpose built island with a couple of beaches and attractions. It was unashamedly touristy so much so that we had originally planned to spend around five hours there but came back after two. The beaches were all well and good but we didn’t want to waste too much time on them as we are well aware we have weeks on the fantastic Thai beaches ahead
Singapore is only 44 years old and it is different from some of the places we’re headed to in that it’s a very clean and comparatively rich South East Asian City. They seem to be desperate to cling on to various Western aspects and this is evident in things such as Sentosa Island and the attraction of the Formula 1 race that takes place again at the end of September.
From here then it’s on to Kuala Lumpur. I am writing this in draft in Changi Airport in Singapore, there is free wifi but I can’t be arsed getting a card from the information desk. It is comfortably the best airport I have been in. I’ll upload this in a few hours in KL and hopefully have another update for you in a few days before we have a couple of days back in Bangkok!
Andy
xxx
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PS – now in Kuala Lumpur. I’ll take back what I said about Singapore Changi Airport, the security dude was FAR too thorough for my liking. Eek.
A great informative post on Singapore. Your one post is more than enough to know briefly everything about Singapore. Good work.
Regards,
Suhasini
http://indiancolumbus.blogspot.com
A unique travel blog
Great post, I like to know what to expect when I go somehwere so I dont get any nasty suprises and this is very informative and helps me on my way to being ready to go. Thanks.
Carmel
Singapore is in direct contast to what you will see in the rest of south east asia and I can believe that you were ready to leave after 3 days. The good news is that there is more to Singapore that is off the tourist board maps. The parks on the Island make up for the concrete pseudo jungle that you’re advised to seee. Guess I’ll have to write up a post shortly.
Hi Kim,
I fully agree that in a city the size of Singapore there will be much more to see and do than is possible in three days – many of the people in our hostel were there for a week or so (maybe they were happy to be in a fairly clean city for a bit after some time in SE Asia’s ‘scruffier’ cities).
One of the things I love about travel is the way different people can have totally different experiences of the same place. There are no rights or wrongs.
I look forward to reading your post on it!
Andy