We arrived in Singapore and realised that neither of us had
noted down the address of the hostel we had pre booked, so that one of us could
pick up a replacement bank card. Thankfully Changi airport came to our rescue
with it’s free internet terminals, I’ve always liked Singapore airport! After
writing down the relevant details we caught the MRT, a fantastic, inexpensive,
clean, efficient, well designed transport system. Although i understand the
reasonings, i could have done without TVs on the trains and the platforms
showing images of the Madrid, London & Mumbai bombings.
After arriving at our hostel in the Little India area of
Singapore and extensively checking the connectivity of the 24 hour free WiFi in
the room, we decided to head out for some dinner, and for something we hadn’t
eaten since we left Australia, a curry! In searching for a restaurant it became
very clear how quickly you become accustomed to your surroundings. In Indonesia
if the pathway is blocked or more likely didn’t exist then you’d walk on the
road, it shouldn’t work but everyone does and expects it so somehow it does, in
Singapore however it doesn’t, we better get used to our new surroundings and
fast!
We allowed 3 days to explore Singapore, which eventually
turned into 4, mainly because i couldn’t drag myself away from the Wifi and i
couldn’t drag Jo away from the shops and stalls of Orchard Road and Chinatown
respectively. When i did finally manage to succeed we found the Funan Mall, a 6 story mall dedicated solely to IT, suddenly roles were reversed, not to be
thwarted though it was still Jo that came away with the only purchase!
Along with all the shopping we have also managed to squeeze
in some of Singapore's other attractions, colourful temples of contrast to those
in Indonesia, museums, art houses, Raffles hotel and the Battle Box, where we
were shown around by a strict sergeant major, who told us when and where we
could go on the tour, he was highly amusing and when we found out the he used
to serve in the Army everything made sense. He more than made up for the fact
that the wireless headsets were sketchy at best and the commentary was therefore
difficult to follow.
While here we’ve also started to try some of the fruit that
we had seen in Indonesia but hadn’t wanted to barter for when we had no idea of
the correct price. So now we have tried the delicious dragon fruit, both purple
and white inners, starfruit and sour sop amongst others, there is after all only
so much rice and noodles a person can eat.
On our last night we decided to head back into the heart of
little India and have another curry while the opportunity presented itself, not
knowing when good Indian food would next appear on our menu. Rather than have a
‘normal’ dish we both went for ‘thali’ a traditional dish, that should fulfill
our cravings for the near future at least.
Another day, another country, we’re now in Melaka, Malaysia
(although Malacca has a better ring to it). We can now cross ‘border crossing
by bus’ off the list of things to do on the trip. Strange though it was,
disembarking the bus to depart the island of Singapore and then being in no
mans land for all of a causeway before stopping again at Malaysian customs to gain
entry to our next destination.
Until next time
Ryan & Jo
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