Singapore

Having spent a few weeks in the more rural parts of South-East Asia, we were quite looking forward to the hustle and bustle of Singapore. Prior to arrival, all we knew of Singapore was that its illegal to chew gum, and that Singaporeans love air-conditioning. We arrived to discover that virtually everything is illegal in Singapore. The whole city is covered with signs telling people what they can't do. We were deeply disappointed to discover that the transportation of durians on the Singaporean Metro system is illegal, but Tara was quite relieved to rid herself of the two that she'd smuggled in from Thailand as they were taking up quite a lot of space in her backpack. We only had two days in Singapore, but we managed to squeeze in quite a few sites. We started off with wander around the colonial district of Singapore, taking in their new Arts Theatre, the Singapore Cricket Club and their old parliament building. From there we wandered up through Fort Canning which sits upon a hill in the middle of the city, and over to Orchard Road to indulge in some retail therapy. In the afternoon we caught the cable car over to Sentosa Island, which is a Singapore's equivalent of Blackpool (a slightly tacky pleasure resort) and also the southern most tip of continental Asia (a dubious claim as it is connected to mainland Asia via two bridges). Singapore has a beautiful colonial feel to it, which we indulged in by sipping Singapore Slings and Gin & Tonics in one of the many Raffles hotel bars. After that we made our way down to the waterfront which is home to one of the livelier parts of town for dinner and drinks.


The public transport system in Singapore is excellent. Its quick, clean and really easy to navigate. So through a combination of trains and buses, we made our way to Changi Prison on east side of Singapore Island on our second morning and visited the war museum that is based there. We then went for a brief stroll around Little India (unsurprisingly this is the Indian quarter of Singapore), before heading out to the airport to catch our flight to Bali. We both really enjoyed Singapore, but it is perhaps a little too sterile. Everything is illegal, and the punishments for breaking any of the laws are extremely harsh. Furthermore, after two days we were beginning to show early signs of frostbite from the arctic air-conditioning so we were glad to be moving onto the beach paradise of Bali.