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Being very tired and being asked for £7/each to leave a country wasn't appreciated! I'd already paid £16 to get in, why not put the price up?! Tut tut Indonesia!
We'd pre booked a hostel for once and got there pretty quickly and easily. I love cities with efficient transport. It was like using an Oyster card in London. We got a 3 day pass for unlimited travel on the tube and on buses for £4/each per day. Not bad! We dumped our stuff in our smelly dorm room, currently with just us in it, and headed out.
We were aiming to go to the famous zoo and night safari but halfway to getting there we thought we might have left it a little too late and then a thunder storm sealed it's fate. Instead we headed to Marina Bay next to the sea with gorgeous sky scraper views, designer stores and impressive architecture. We went to an exhibition of Dali and a Van Gogh light exhibition which were really good. Coming out in the dark with all the skyscrapers was impressive and we headed back for a good sleep where we had been joined by a Japanese guy in our dorm.
We headed for the zoo on our only full day in Singapore. It's a great zoo, favouring moats rather than cages to split you up from the animals. Highlights included feeding a giraffe carrots with it's long tongue licking away, watching the jaguars being fed and diving head first into water to retrieve the meat, seeing orang-utans up close as they came down to be fed, a sea lion show and a closer look at the Komodo dragon. Soon it was time for the exciting night safari. There were 4 walking trails, a tram ride and a night show. The trails and tram meant you saw different animals-you couldn't walk the tram route. On the tram we saw so much and the herbivores were free roaming with cattle grids separating the sections, making it like a safari park. There were beautiful deer and I fell in love with the mouse deer-I can't believe how small they are and how thin their silly little legs are!!! The hyenas were incredible too. We walked past some when no one was around and we were ducking behind a bush, they were all watching us and one came over for a look. We didn't get to hear them 'laugh' though!
Walking around there was a flying squirrel enclosure that you went into. I thought flying squirrels were a similar size as a normal squirrel-these were as big as dogs and dogs don't fly! One was high up on a tree so were we all waiting with anticipation to see it fly but no one suspected it'd leap right into the crowd setting off a load of girls screaming to everyones amusement! There was a similar bat enclosure. I've never seen the giant fruit bats that were flying around and hanging in trees, they were massive. All I could think of was Batman! We also loved the beautiful fishing cats, the slow loris and so much more that I can't remember! I could go again today, it was fantastic.
We didn't get back until around 1.30am this morning so we're pretty tired today, like normal! We headed to see the Raffles hotel where the Singapore Sling was invented but we can't afford cocktails! And then we went to see the Merlion, a cross between a mermaid and a lion that is always shown when the Formula 1 is on. It was really nice.
Our flight to Oz is at 10pm and we get there about 5am their time. We've crossed 3 time zones in the last few days, only by an hour difference but I'm not going to have a clue how far ahead I am there! We have no guidebook either so we're heading into the unknown. We've looked for second hand books to swap/buy for months and new books are £28 just for Oz, never mind Fiji or NZ! We'll lay low for the next 3 days resting (I can't remember the last time my feet and legs didn't ache) trying to get used to how expensive it is and planning our 2 month route, plus we need to start thinking about where we want to spend Christmas and book somewhere. We'll also be on the look out for crocs which apparently just roam the streets in Darwin!
I'm sad to leave Asia but we'll be back. I've started writing a summary of our 6 months here that I'll finish in the next couple of days.
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