Into Asia

Sunday 12th April
We headed off early to meet Pete and Chris for breakfast in Brighton before returning our 11th car and getting on the plane to Singapore. It was lovely to see them again and Pete gave me a lovely Opal stone, which he'd cut that week.. I shall try to get it set before we get home. Many thanks Pete. Getting from check in onto the plane proved more than a bit hectic: once again we had to go through the xray machines twice...which we'd forgotten, so I'd put all the liquids back into my washbag!!! oh dear. We didn't even have time for a coffee, let alone spend our last Oz dollars. Still the flight itself was great in terms of beautiful hostesses and lovely food. The only down point was the guy who sat next to Brent in the aisle seat: he announced as we sat down that he would be getting drunk, explaining that he had a metal plate in his head, so claimed he needed to drink to cope with the pain. He then proceeded to order one short after another! The staff were clearly struggling with his requests and as we neared Singapore their supervisor came over to talk with him. He also checked we were ok and handled the situation with real expertise. The plane landed on time around 5.30 and we were proud of ourselves when we found the MRT( tram / underground system) and got to the station nearest our hotel quite easily. Unfortunately we left the station at the wrong exit and spent some time finding the hotel, which was a short but uphill walk in high temperatures and high humidity. It was after 8pm when we got there looking hot and bothered! It was great to be met by a charming receptionist who couldn't do enough to settle us in. The hotel is retro 70s and our room was lovely, with great air con., full Bruce Lee cut outs over the bed and brightly coloured furniture and fittings. We overlooked a pretty park and were in easy reach of the whole city via the MRT.

Monday 13th – Wednesday 15th April
Highlights of Singapore:
the cleanliness of the place:we can't believe how spotless it is...no chewing gum, not a nub end to be seen ( except in ash trays), and huge areas eg; the causeways in the tram stations, which are simply immaculate. Very impressive.

The Food: we ate in both Chinatown and Little India, choosing the food courts in Chinatown and a restaurant in India. For $2,50 ( around £1) we got good meals in the food courts, where hawker stalls sell a wide range of traditional foods, whilst it was 3 times as expensive in the restaurant, but really lovely food. Both very good value. The waiter and supervisor in the Indian restaurant were really friendly, but when we went to the loo before leaving we both noticed that the kitchen was a bit of a sweat shop: whilst we dined in lovely air conditioned surrounds the staff behind the scenes had no such luxuries.. hard to get to grips with.

Raffles Hotel: as Brent was wearing shorts, he wasn't allowed into the lobby,
but I was and it was quite lovely. We were pleased that we were both allowed to look around the outside and visit the shops and other areas of the hotel. It really is very beautiful and it was easy to imagine the rich and beautiful dining in such sumptuous surroundings. We though about having the champagne lunch at $142, but not for very long...tee hee!

The Hindu temple in Chinatown, where we caught an evening ceremony. the
ornately decorated interior was typical of Hindu temples and we were intrigued to witness the religious practise there.

The bronze statues in the UAL place in the financial area near the river.. we hit
this at the end of lunchtime and felt the effects of the aircon within even in the square between the buildings! The Dali and Henry Moore statues were just perfectly placed and we loved them.

Other interesting moments in Singapore:

Our first bar: as we entered through a black door, I felt a bit uncomfortable, but the beer was reasonable priced and the karaoke music a bit of fun. It was when one of the pretty girls there ( and she was a girl) sidled up to Brent and asked if he wanted to buy her, that I felt even more uncomfortable! Brent was a bit flabbergasted and we didn't stay for a 2nd beer!!

visiting the money changers: we decided to change our Oz and NZ left over dollars and found out that in Singapore money changers are the way to do it, giving the same deal as bankers and very easy to find and compare. We found several all together in one of the many air con'ed shopping centres. We even managed to change NZ dollars into Malay currency.

It was interesting to see the similarities between the working folk here and elsewhere: they clearly worked all hours; wore smart clothes with the men generally in white shirts and trousers and the women often in heels and smart skirts; got stressed, which lead to us being dealt with in a very brusque way particularly at the post office: were equally hooked on mobile phone usage! We also noticed small numbers of locals exercising in the park early in the mornings. This involved walking up and down the steps whilst waving arms about and we could see similarities with Tai Chi.

The weather: we were actually very lucky to only get one shower on Wed. morning and this although really heavy, was short lived. Apart from that it was generally sunny, hot ( 30degrees) and very humid. Have to admit we found it quite difficult and it was great to have the comfort of the hotel to chill in, which we did each afternoon. We had thought to visit the zoo, but in the end spent some time on the laptop organising the next stage of our trip. This was particularly important as there are currently troubles in Thailand, so we've decided to stay longer in Malaysia before heading that way. We are both a bit nervous about tomorrow, when we get the train out. Fingers crossed for us!!

Thursday 16th April

We got up early, packed up the last of our belongings and headed out to the station. Getting there early was something of a relief. I was less nervous about this stage of our journey than Linda. We got through the first stage of exiting Singapore with a simple walk through customs at the station. The train proved to be air conditioned and have loads of leg room and a plasma tv to boot. We settled into our seats for the journey through Singapore to the bridge crossing in the north. At this point the train stopped again and we had to get off to have passports checked for our journey into Malaysia. Normally at this point it is me that gets pulled over for some reason. Linda went through first and everything seemed to be ok until she turned round to ask me about a piece of card with the entry stamp for Singapore on it. She had managed to lose it so was drawn aside into a separate office to fill in another one. I waited while everyone got back on the train. I had visions of it pulling away with all our bags on board. Fortunately we managed to get back on board ok. The train had a friendly atmosphere with many of the Malays chatting amongst themselves. People got on and off as we continued our journey. The train went through a landscape filled with many palms and banana trees. It was very green in contrast to the arid landscape we had witnessed in Australia. Some of my geography lessons came back to me about the dangers of clearing natural rainforest and replacing it with plantations. The rivers showed plenty of evidence of the extent of the run off from the soil as they ran thick with sediment.
We eventually arrived at our destination right on schedule and were almost assaulted by a taxi driver outside the station offering us a lift. As we were now really backpacking we said yes. An attempt to haggle him down was unsuccessful but the total cost was only two pound anyway. The hotel proved to be reasonable clean. This was in total contrast to the brief walk we took to get some money from the bank. The road side drains emmanated the most horrendous smells and the lack of anything resembling a pleasant place to eat had us returning back to the hotel and ordering room service. Ipoh is definitely only a transit spot.

Linda here...thought I'd finish this off as Brent is flicking TV channels in our hotel room in Ipoh and I'm waiting for the bath to fill...yes a bath! It will be our first in many weeks...yippee!