Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
Arriving in Asia to meet Punch for the start of his travels and the last 3 months of mine, i met him on top form with yet another stinking bout of tonsilitis caught in Fiji. So i was a right barrell of laughs for the first couple of days. Our first impressions of Singapore were of staying in Little India, a district in the centre, very much alive with the sights, smells and sounds of India. Very much different to the rest of Singapore which is pretty serene and civilised, Little India is a hub of markets, restaurants and street shops, was great fun! So as i was sick as a bird for the first couple of days, the most exciting thigns we did amounted to a bit of shopping in one of Singapores millions of plazas and a viewing of Mr Bean.?We both knew however that we had to be careful in a country where some of the criminal offences include eating on the subway, chewing gum, negelcting to flush a public toilet and as it would later transpire, paying less than 3.50 for a pint. We didnt plan to stay too long in Singapore and at the first opportunity we got along to Singapore Zoo, with more than 2000 animals. Punch was in his element, i was just trying to stay away from the snakes...
Next day, after randomly bumping into my friend Gemma who i met in Australia, we moved on to the world famous Raffles Hotel, an amazing complex which evokes some nostalgia for good old British colonialism. Punch, Gemma and I had to be the latest in a very long line of people to relax at the bar with a Singapore Sling (invented at the hotel by a British guy with a double barrell name in the early 20th century) but at $24 (8.50) a pop it was only ever going to be one between the three of us. We then got completely ripped off on the way home when we decided to travel home through the streets on some kind of weird karty thing. Only supposed to fit two people on, our elderly driver did well to fit three of us, with me perched over the front wheel, as you can see in the photographs. A great way to travel around but cant afford!
As I say we had planned to move on after about 4 days to go to Hong Kong and China as we had about 3 weeks spare before Laos. We stupidly however went out for what would turn into a VERY drunken night (never playing ring of fire again) with a 6.40am flight the next day. I might have been responsible for us missing afforementioned flight after passing out in a shopping centre and waking up with our plane somewhere over bangkok i guess. And after 4 days, Punch was so delighted he'd come travelling with me....
We manged to get a flight out the following day, after lots of sleep and schmoozing Punch. It was a pretty quiet last day unsurprisingly but all in all Singapore was a pretty cool place. I think people are harsh on it as most travellers dont have many good things to say about the country. Its true that it pretty much revolves around shopping, the nightlife is fairly limited and expensive and?the amount of?history and culture makes Australia look good! But it was quite a pleasant, charming place, a somewhat false introduction to Asia perhaps. 4 days there would have been plenty. 5 and a half turned out to be more than enough...
- comments