Singapore

We left Melaka on a standard Malaysian long distance bus, which have been considerably more comfortable than previous countries equivalents, which would take us all the way into the Singapore via the border. Singapore is referred to as a city-state which rules as an individual nation made up of both a large mainland area and 63 islands, comprising a total area which could fit into the UK 350 times. Our border crossing from Malaysia into Singapore was fairly straight forward but was quite a draw out affair due to the distances between each sets of immigration and the fact that we had to wait for everyone from the bus to complete each of them before moving on to the next. Having said this there was only five of us on the bus. The only issue came when we reached the Singaporean immigration control when we hadn’t filled in the necessary form, but no worry as the officer let us get in the booth with him while we filled it out. I'm not sure he thought it through as two extra people and two rather hefty backpacks was a little much for his tiny booth to handle.

We were dropped off at a small bus terminal with no way of telling where we were so had to ask in a shop to get a rough idea of where we were. Although we had read about it, we were still shocked, yet very pleased, to hear the lady reply in near perfect English, as it’s the official language of Singapore. This doesn’t mean everyone speaks English all the time, in fact far from it, but it seemed we never had to deal with a language barrier as the locals seemed very capable of speaking both. It turned out we were very close to an underground station and only two stops north of the station we needed to get to. We struggled purchasing a ticket at first from the machine as it wouldn’t accept our notes. It took us longer than it should to realise we were trying to use Malaysian money. However, even with the correct currency we still struggled but a kind Singaporean man made change for us and we were away. Singaporean train tickets are plastic bank card style tickets which are very good value as you get some of your money back if you return the ticket after use.

We had chosen to stay in Little India as the hostel we had found there seemed to be the cheapest we could find in this dangerously expensive city. At £11 per night it was considerably more than any previous dorm I had stayed in but was good value as it had a great bar downstairs, free internet, very clean rooms and good atmosphere. We had arrived in the city on a Saturday when the streets of Little India are packed with the thousands of migrant workers enjoying their days off which made for a great scene. In Hong Kong I found myself staying in an Indian area of the city and very much enjoyed it, but here was even better. The Prince of Wales hostel was in the heart of Little India but was in fact an Aussie hostel and we found ourselves checked into the Sydney room along with 4 others. In reality we were in a twenty-two bed dorm as it was one large room separated by partition walls, with each section being named after a different Australian city.

In a similar way to how I collect shot glasses form places I’ve been, Linz has recently started to collect souvenir glasses from Hard Rock Cafes around the world and was very keen to add Singapore to the mantel piece. So we headed off to Orchard Road which is Singapore’s main commercial street covered with restaurants, bars, cinemas and so many of large shopping centres. We found the Hard Rock Cafe and enjoyed a rather expensive meal and a particularly good Singaporean cover band which played a great selection of crowd pleasers. We left with a few dozen free badges as the man in the Rock Shop seemed to take a liking to us.

Tonight was my first night in a dorm since Hong Kong and Linz’s first all together. Each section of the dorm had its own light but it seemed only ours felt the need to leave it on until 2am. I had forgotten about the awkwardness regarding who turns the light out in dorms as no one wants to do it unless everyone is asleep but someone always seems to stay up for hours. Other than that it was a fairly uneventful evening.

We set off the next morning to find what would be my fourth city sightseeing bus of the trip which would pick us up from just round the corner. Since failing so miserably in Bangkok to get our bearing on the city we have found doing a bus tour, or driving round ourselves, makes it so much easier to get a feel for where everything is. We did a whole lap of the city before alighting in the Marina Bay area which was unquestionably our favourite area of the city. The centrepiece is the relatively new Marina Bay Sands Hotel which stands a three curved towers joined at the top by something which resembles a huge surfboard.

Marina Bay Sands on the left and the rather odd Museum of Art Science on the right

We headed towards our first sight, but on the way suddenly realised we were walking across the Singapore F1 track so diverted to walk along it as I knew the start line was just round the corner. Amazed that we were just allowed to walk along the track we soon found ourselves walking along the pit straight where all 24 drivers from last season’s race still had their names written across each garage. Somehow even Linz was getting into it and even committed months in advance to watching the race in September.



Quick pit stop



Making my feeling known

Our first attraction was the Singapore Flyer which is a 165m tall ferris wheel (30m taller than the London Eye) at the mouth of the bay, or more specifically, between turns 21 and 22 of the F1 track. Unlike in London, this wheel comes with a small exhibition at the base including virtual 3D models you can interact with about how the wheel works.

It may be bigger than the London Eye, but I think ours looks nicer!

The views from the top were amazing as we could see the skyline of the city, the distant suburbs and the vast number of ships waiting outside this very busy port city. Another benefit of going on the Flyer was I could get an excellent bird’s eye view of this section of the F1 circuit and spent a while establishing why I am so terrible at this particular track on the Playstation. We finished the wheel and, having done a second lap of the track, headed over the entrance to the bay via a most bizarre helical pedestrian bridge.

The view of downtown Singapore from the Flyer. In the bottom of the photo you can
see the wierd bridge we later crossed over

It took so long to actually get us and the city in the same photo

On the other side of the bridge we entered the Marina Bay Sands shopping centre to find some lunch which we managed with ease having found the food court. Following lunch we found the entrance to the hotel’s casino and, as we were unsure whether we were dressed appropriately, found a vantage point to watch others enter to see what was and wasn’t allowed. Fear of open rejection caused us not to approach ourselves. Having confirmed we weren’t going to be turned away for our clothes we confidently approached the entrance at which point we were openly rejected for not having our passports with us. We gave up and vowed to return later.

We had the choice to go up to the hotel’s surfboard style roof as it was in fact the Sky Garden, but we decided against it and instead got back on the sightseeing bus to see a different area of town. The new route took us away from the CBD into some of the suburbs including a few rather nice quays before dropping us off in Orchard Road. We had only seen this main road at night so far so opted to walk along it during the day to witness the hordes of young locals milling around the dozens of shopping centres, before re-boarding the bus to take us back to Little India.

We hung around the hostel for a while before appropriately dressing ourselves, including pocketing our passports, and heading back into town to hit the casino. Normally when trying to save money it wouldn’t be wise to head for a casino but given that even Las Vegas couldn’t get us putting more than the bare minimum into a gaming machine we felt it safe. We emerged from the underground not far from Marina Bay Sands so could enjoy a walk along the water’s edge looking across at the skyline we had seen earlier during the day. Our second attempt at entering the casino was a complete success but we soon found ourselves lost among the thousands of tables and machines, and then disappointed the only game we ever play (video blackjack) wasn’t even there.



Marina Bay Sands at night with the Flyer in the distance



We settled for a few games of video roulette before leaving a few dollars down as was to be expected. We wandered around the shopping centre trying to find somewhere for dinner but were rather surprised to find very few options but did stubble across an amazing light and laser show. It was performed over the water featuring green lasers fired off the hotel behind us, similar to the one in Hong Kong, but the most incredible part was how they shot a very fine spray of water directly up from the bay and projected images onto it like a cinema. The overall effect was quite impressive but overwhelming hunger forced us to pursue our quest for food and we soon found a pizza place to end our night out. We returned to the P.O.W in time to catch the finale of the English Premier League season in the form of Manchester United beating Blackpool. Newcastle finished higher in the league than I had hoped for at the start of the season, but throwing away a three goal lead to West Brom, which would have seen us finish in the top half, was frustrating to say the least.

Singapore at night

The next day we headed for the island of Sentosa which is more of a resort than anything else as it includes numerous hotel and restaurants as well as a casino and, its main attraction, Universal Studios. Rather than take the ferry we took the cable car across the water to the island which dropped us at the islands tallest point requiring a short walk to Universal Studios. On the way down, which turned out to be via a number of outdoor escalators, we passed the Merlion which was a three story statue of a half fish and half lion which we passed on the opportunity to climb up. We thought it was mildly impressive but apparently the locals though much more of it as they collectively freaked out when it was struck by lightning not too long ago causing it to fall apart in places.

The Merlion featuring its newly added lightning rod

Having had to take the monorail for the last part of the journey we arrived at Universal Studios where we had to take the customary photo of us in front of the spinning logo. The park was split into various themed zones including Jurassic Park, Ancient Egypt, retro-New York, Madagascar, Sci-fi and the fairytale land from Shrek.



Im not sure why I felt a half-arsed Usain Bolt impression was required



A particular highlight was the combination of Battlestar Galactic themed rollercoasters in the Sci-Fi area, despite the entire storyline regarding humans and some sort of tin can aliens being completely lost on me. An unexpected bonus of this ride was an incredible view of Singapore’s skyline from upside down as you went over a loop. Amazingly there was never a queue for these but there was often an hour long queue for the terrible Madagascar ride. We also shared a river rapids boat with an Aussie family through Jurassic Park, enjoyed a surprisingly intimidating Mummy ride and had lunch while watching a barbershop quartet perform on New York’s streets.

It was hot

Our final attraction in the park was a stunt show based on the film Waterworld which involved various jet ski jumps and a plane crashing through the wall. For some of the rides we queued for quite a while but nothing compared to how long we stopped in one of the park’s shops on the way out. Linz took so long deciding over a souvenir T-shirt I was starting to worry whether we’d make our flight to Australia in a weeks time.

Me and the lads

As we boarded our gondola back to the mainland we found out we had an extra trip included in our ticket so we continued on the cable car beyond where we thought would be getting off so could enjoy more views over the city as the sun was setting. We returned to the hostel where we sat in the bar for a while enjoying live music from an American man who was playing shows to earn a little extra money in addition to his regular job choreographing Universal Studio’s Waterworld show.

Our fourth day in Singapore was spent almost entirely in the hostel as we needed to plan our remaining week in Asia. We were deciding between travelling around Malaysian Borneo or lounging around a pool on Indonesian Bali. We decided to end our time in Asia with a relatively cheap week in Bali before returning to Singapore for our flight to Australia, so we booked our flights and accommodation from our usual seats in the bar. We did venture into town to find some lunch from a sandwich shop near Orchard Road and later to the Tapas bar across the road for dinner, but other than that we did very little on our last full day in Singapore. Lunch was excellent but the Tapas bar turned out to be incredibly expensive and a bit of an annoyance. That night’s entertainment was a local band with a horrific female singer which we couldn’t help but listen to from the dorm as her voice seemed to pierce through the floor more than previous night’s singers.

The following morning was very similar to the day before in that we hung around the bar using the laptop while watching re-runs of Sebastian Vettel’s Spanish Grand Prix victory while the manager was getting more and more annoyed at someone along the bar from us. She was getting increasingly more racist about his Scottish wife and he had a brutal hangover to add to it all, but it did provide extra entertainment while we waited for our bus to the airport.

We arrived at Singapore Airport, which was my first since Beijing almost three months earlier, checked in and had lunch at Subway. I’ve never trusted international Subways since a dodgy chicken experience in Washington but Singapore had been so good to us over the last five days I decided to trust it. I was pleased I did. Our flight from Singapore to Indonesia was with Dutch airline KLM and offered a surprisingly good amount of entertainment. I took the opportunity to watch Black Swan but the plane landed just as the big finale started. Very annoying.

Our five days in Singapore were among the best we’ve done so far and we easily could have stayed for considerably longer, but five days in this city already set us back quite a lot. Hong Kong remains my favourite city so far but Singapore, which doesn’t differ very much, comes in close behind it a there is so much to do, it looks fantastic, its impeccably clean and getting round is so easy. Now it’s time for Bali and a week spent around a swimming pool before the next leg of our travels begin in Australia.