Anxious and excited we boarded the new A380 for the next leg of our journey, leaving the cooler climbs of Japan behind and entering the tropical Malaysian island of Singapore.
Singapore is a vast city which consumes most of this 242 square mile island and is cantered around its river, which was the birth place of all the trade which the city has grown from.
The humidity in Singapore is an average of 96% daily, being only 85 miles from the equator it is, therefore, very hot! November is also the rainy season, we were fortunate enough to have carried the umbrellas with us, because when it rains it pours!!
Singapore is home to 3 main ethnic groups, all of which you experience when visiting.
The main occupants are Malaysians, Chinese and Indian The mother tongue is that of each ethnic origin, although most widely spoken is 'Singlish', a mixture of each ethnic tongue and english, therefore communication is easy with english so widely spoken.
Singapore has a reputation for a low crime rate due to its strict laws and policing. For instance you will incur a fine of 1000 Singapore Dollars if you eat or drink on a train platform or train, you will be fined in fact for a number of routine habits such as crossing the road where there is no pedestrian crossing, chewing gum, not flushing a public loo, spitting in the street etc. etc., in fact before visiting you are intimidated and conscious about your every move!! We did, however, see very little police presence, certainly in comparison to Japan and we did even on several occasions, forget we were not permitted to have a gulp of water in the sweltering heat on the train platforms and we were allowed to leave the country without a fine! So maybe policing isn't as strict as the reputation makes out!
The Singapore Botanical Gardens and orchid gardens are surreal! Its incredible to see so many Orchids growing so vivaciously in a vast outdoor garden and in trees, when at home we have to nurture them with daily feeds and keep them in a certain position in our homes to keep that one incredibly beautiful and expensive plant in flower! It almost seems effortless in such a humid climate! In the evening the gardens, trees and any green spaces come alive with the singing of crickets and other native insects.
We visited Singapore Zoo which houses the only walk through Orang-utan exhibit in the world! It was so refreshing to see these incredible mammals in such a vast exhibit with so much enrichment they looked completely at home! I also felt at home, surrounded by so many of my long lost ginger relatives!! That night we visited the Singapore Night Safari, adjacent to the zoo, where all the nocturnal residents of the zoo are exhibited from the naughty Raccoon to the Giant Flying Squirrel, whom had obviously had a large dinner that night, because he wasn't flying anywhere!!
On our final day we had to visit Raffles, well we did cheat a little, we didn't actually go into the vast hotel, we admired from the outside, as we didn't feel in our backpacking attire we were appropriately dressed to consume the famous Singapore Sling, we were however offered one for free on the flight , winner!!
Singapore is well worth a visit with its variety of cultures hospitable people and huge variety of flora and fauna its a must see!!
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