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Singapore-a place which before travelling I thought was part of Malaysia was amazing! We went with 2 aims, 1-to see the city without spending a fortune and 2- to meet Dave's extended family who live there!
We arrived Saturday evening knowing that Karen was picking us up, all I knew was that she was a relative...not what age she was or what she looked like! Luckily I'd sent them a photo of what I looked like that day and we were approached by 2 timid teenagers who asked "do you know David manning?" and we replied that yes in fact we did! They are a lovely family, they took us to our hostel and we made plans to go to the zoo with them the following day. The hostel was tucked away on a bustling little street full of local eateries and lots of karaoke bars. The man who welcomed us was very helpful and we dropped our bags and hit the sack!
The following day we ate the FREE breakfast, it was one if those instances where little things seem like luxury- we couldn't believe that as well as getting toast and fruit it was all UNLIMITED making sure we ate as much as we could each morning! The family picked us up at 10.30 and we headed to the zoo having been told we needed all day to see it! On the scale of zoo poo to zoo mad I fall somewhere in the middle but we heard that this one is world famous, it's huge and feels more like a national park as they don't use metal cages, only natural barriers such as water to separate the animals! Upon driving there they pointed out lots of sights and helped us organise our itinerary for the next few days, they showed us on a map that the zoo was in the north and we thought...ah right it's in the north of the city...NOPE- the country! You can reach the border in just over half an hour! I could take this country home in my backpack!!
The zoo was fantastic and well worth a visit- we saw so many animals up close, lemurs running free between your legs and baboons who could keep you entertained for hours! Karen and her great navigtion skills made sure we saw EVERYTHING and we left with aching legs at 6pm! Whilst walking around i was amazed by their level of English, the parents used it at work and the children are taught in it- they are so good and spoke the whole day in english even to each other. The hours wandering also enabled me to get to know them a bit better and chat to the children who had been a bit shy the night before.
We then nipped back to their house for dinner and the WHOLE family was there....aunts,uncles, cousins and the grandma! They were all lovely and chatty,interested in our travels and what we thought of Singapore! We had one of the best meals we've had since being on the road and I really enjoyed myself, it was so nice to feel part of their family :). After that you'd think we'd head home- nope! Back to the zoo we went, just Natalia and I for the night safari where we got to see nocturnal animals up close. There were bats flying in front of your faces and huge water buffalo ambling alongside our tram. We arrived back at the hostel at midnight tired but having had an amazing first day!
Monday we spent the day sightseeing on our own. We started off with Sentosa island, an island seperated by a mere 10 minute monorail ride from the mainland. We marvelled at it's sense of not being real- imagine rollercoaster tycoon for islands,it was full of as many attractions as possible coupled with a man made beach forming an entertainment island! We headed for the aquarium-underwaterworld which was fun but rather small for the price you pay to enter. Nut, never having been to one before was fascinated by the underside of stingrays with their funny looking mouths! We then stopped for a swim in the sea and a sunbathe. We were going to get cable cars back across but when we reached them decided we'd save our money as we could see just as much from the monorail. But it did lead us to a lookout point where there was fountains and a giant Merlion (half lion-half mermaid) - the symbol of Singapore!
After a few hours back at the hostel to re-energise and a brief panic about how we were going o get all the way from Singapore to Thailand (which I'll explain later) we headed out for a night of yet more sightseeing! In 3 hours we wanted to squeeze in dinner,a visit to the fountain of wealth (the worlds largest fountain) and a drink in the sky bar, the hostel were really helpful and filled us in on how to get to each. We grabbed a 10 minute dinner on the street corner where a local eating house sold great street food for student style prices. Then we power walked to the MRT, their metro system and arrived at 8pm sharp at the fountain. Now think in your head of what you think the worlds largest fountain would look like...really long?nope, really tall?nope...in fact it has the largest AREA, over 1000m squared which although wasn't what we were expecting was impressive all the same and it had a cool laser show to go with it! We then walked to Marina bay sands home to the skybar, it's in one of the coolest buildings I've ever seen- 3 towers covered at the top by a roof that covers them all and that roof was where we were heading! We were apprehensive about the price to just get up there to the 57th floor but found entry to be free to the lookout part, if we'd wanted to go to the bar we'd have had to follow the dresscode (which as we had put on our dressiest clothes- a dress and gold sandals for me- must have been of a pretty high standard)! The view was incredible and well worth the trip-annoyingly Nut's SLR had a hissy fit and blurred a lot of pictures, shed been waiting for this moment since she bought it! Again we got back to the hostel exhausted and went straight to bed!
Whilst we were sightseeing the family were doing research for us into buses through malaysia to Thailand and sent us a very helpful email with the name and address if a company which ran a VIP bus with reclining seats from s'pore to hatyai situated on the Thai-Malaysian border where we can get a bus-ferry combo to Koh Samui :). We booked that this morning (tues) to travel this evening, it's going to take 23 hours in total!!! Today we also squeezed in a trip to little India and wandered past amazing shops selling beautiful sari's but I also had my first bad meal- a rubbishly made korma!
May (an aunty of daves) dropped us at the bus stop and also insisted she pay for 2 nights of our stay! I've loved meeting the family and their generosity has made an expensive city possible for us to appreciate- thanks guys and hope to see you again soon!
- comments
holly sounds like your having a good and adventurous time! Glad your enjoying it,xx