Singapore

10th October – 14th October

Singapore confirms and undermines popular stereotypes in equal measure. Yes, it’s modern clean and organised. No, it’s not stifiling, straight laced and dull. What you have is a 21st century metropolis with a culture, history and cuisine that’s remarkably rich for a place so small.

Our flight from Miri brought us to Johar Bharu, in the very south of Malaysia. From there we took the bus to Singapore, involving two border posts and the hectic causeway. We stayed in the Prince of Wales (PoW) hostel in Little India – a world away from the Singapore we had imagined! A double booking meant that the private room we had reserved would not be available until the following night – no problems though as there was space in one of the dorms, and it would save us a bit of money too!

Tired and hungry, we went for a curry nearby, which turned out to be the best food that we had had in quite some time! The PoW is a hostel and Australian style bar, so we had a drink there and enjoyed the live band that was playing. It wasn’t a late night by Aussie standards, as we knew that we had a busy day ahead of us exploring Singapore!

Ady was on the top bunk with Sam below, and out of the 18 beds only 3 others were occupied… we drifted off to sleep and were dreaming to ourselves until one of our room mates returned home. It must have been around 3am, we’re not sure exactly, and he wasn’t alone. He’d invited a young Swedish girl back to the room to take a look round… before long they were banging away on the bed next to Sam….! To give him his due, he managed it 3 times (Ady’s words BTW…Sam was horrified), but by this time the rest of the people in the room were getting a little bit peeved. Sam had earplugs in, but they were no match for the creaking bunk, whimpering and moans that were emanating from the other bed! We would have said something, but not knowing what the dormitory etiquette was (we’ve managed to steer clear in other places!) we didn’t want to interrupt!

In the morning, the other people in the room were as annoyed as us at the antics – entertaining at first, but then just rude! We had to set out on our day sightseeing with less sleep than we would have liked.

Wandering out of the hostel by day, you could be forgiven for thinking that you were in India as the surrounding area was a mass of Indian restaurants, shops and people that gave off a real Indian atmosphere. 10 minutes later, stepping of the MRT (train) we were in Chinatown where street food and shops transported us to another country of Asia. There are many Chinese temples in Singapore, you can see some of these in the photos. Sam had to don some very fetching loan sarongs in order to look around as she was showing a bit too much arm for some peoples liking…!

Singapore is home to a mass of shopping centres, where you can pick up absolutely anything. Sam turned one corner and spotted an M&S, and we headed straight to the food department. It was difficult to bring ourselves to buy anything there though, as for the price of a bag of crisps we could have a full meal from one of the food hawker centres! Resisting the temptation on this occasion, we strolled on and walked to the waterfront, where many fancy restaurants and cafes backed onto the water. There was some boat racing going on and we sat and watched for a while, before stumbling upon a cricket match on the pitch in the city centre. The picture of the game of cricket with a backdrop of the skyscrapers shows how much of a city of contrasts this is. We missed the Formula 1 Gran Prix by a couple of weeks, but some of the city streets still had crash barriers up, and Ady got his photos standing on the track!

For Saturday night, Clarke Quay is the place to be. It reminded us of the waterfront area of Cape Town, South Africa, with outdoor restaurants lining one side of the river. For another break from asian food, we chose to splash out on a Mexican restaurant. We won’t be recommending it though as the service was shocking, and the food mediocre. Afterwards, crossing the river brought us to an undercover arcade full of more restaurants, bars, cafes and clubs. It was lucky that this area was undercover as the rain decided to pay us a visit. On our never ending search for cider that we seem to be encountering on this trip, we found Strongbow on draft! A pint and a half cost $24 – about £10! After that we’d ran out of cash, and took the last train home.

Sentosa island is an oasis south of Singapore city centre and the monorail ride over the harbour to get to it reminded us of the entrance to Alton Towers. Our fellow passengers, crowds of young Singaporeans were all very excited at their upcoming day out – we were equally as curious as to what we were about to do over the next few hours. The man made beach was a sight in itself, with several attractions along the sandy strip, from the flying trapeze to Café del Mar!

After walking along the beach we found a spot with a great view of the shipping lane into Singapore harbour! The sea wasn’t particularly clean and the temptation of the pool within Café del Mar was too much for us! We wandered into the complex and dropped our things onto a large double sunbed. We picked them up pretty quickly when we were told that there was a minimum bar spend of $100 to use the bed! Instead we took a stool at the pool bar and had a juice which we made last as long as possible. The clientele were an interesting mix of people, from rich young Singaporeans to rich western tourists and several of Singapore’s finest gay contingent sporting shorts even smaller and tighter than Ady’s! Actually, they were disturbingly small, not even covering the arse crack and certainly leaving no room for the guys package!

As the sun went down, we decided to splash out on cocktails – Ady had a Singapore Sling (what else!?) and Sam had a creamy chocolate, coconut, strawberry and Baileys concoction! Not being able to stretch to dinner at Café del Mar, we took advice from the Lonely Planet and caught the bus out of town to a specially recommended curry restaurant, going by the name of Samy! The food was good, but didn’t warrant the effort of getting to the place – we could have eaten just as well next to our hostel in Little India for half of the price!

We woke on Monday morning to the sound of torrential rain on our roof, not a great start to the day we had to spend out and about as we had checked out of the Hostel. We took a loan umbrella and headed out into the downpour. Craving something different to eat, Falafal to be precise, the Arab quarter was sure to be able to satisfy our needs. It didn’t and we couldn’t find Falafal, so had to make do with a pie from a bakery instead! After wandering aimlessly around the centre of Singapore for several more hours it was time to go take the bus north back into Malaysia, then on to Kuala Terrenganu for the Perhentian Islands.