Singapore

After a very hot and steamy night, we found our way down to the Bugis MRT, managed to buy tickets and were soon on our way to Sungei Bulah Wildlife Reserve. There we set off on one of the routes around the wetland. Every now and then we’d come across a hide or a platform, and even a tower.  At one of the hides we saw many different waders and on the track a couple of monitor lizards, one in the process of devouring a fish. It was very hot, but later on in the day it thundered and there were a couple of heavy showers. We spent a few hours at the reserve, then retraced our transport to the hostel where we crashed for a time before hitting the markets looking for dinner. We bought pineapple, oranges, melon and durian. The latter is not nice. It tastes a bit like old tinned asparagus and has a slimy texture and smells like poo. So now our room smells of stale cigarette smoke with an overlay of poo.

Next morning we hopped on the SIA hop-on hop-off bus and alighted at the Botanical Gardens. We spent a couple of wonderful hours there.  The orchid garden was really worth going to, it was beautifully landscaped and the orchids stunning. There was a great display elsewhere of orchids and carnivorous plants.

We walked around the lake and Rob spotted a green pigeon, so he was happy. We ate our oranges and then hopped back on the bus to Little India where we headed straight for the Banana Leaf Restaurant. Our meal arrived and a pile of rice was put on one banana leaf plate, to which we added our chicken khadakai curry, bindi masala and raita. It was delicious, probably the best Indian food I’ve ever had! We washed it all down with a pot of Jasmine tea. Full as fat pigs we wobbled back to the bus, went a couple of stops to the Singapore Art Museum. Spent an hour looking mainly at a current exhibition of modern art and installation pieces, fairly weird and wonderful, but is it art? Back to the hostel, changed shirts and shoes then carried/wheeled our bags to Bugis metro. It was not too difficult as the market crowds had thinned out and we avoided the worst bit.

At the metro station we met a lovely Singaporean man who was helpful about getting to the airport and imparted lots of local knowledge. English and Mandarin is compulsory in school, population 4.2 million, 4 main ethnic groups – Chinese, Malay, Indian and expats (500,000).

We had no trouble on the metro although it was quite crowded until we changed for the final section. After spendin the last of our cash, we boarded our plane.  A smooth flight and as they ran out of our preferred meal we got 1^st class steak dinner which was excellent. We were given a host of snacks – filled rolls, snickers bars, dried cranberries and apples. Good grief, we certainly wouldn't go hungry.

Back in God’s own country, a real palaver getting our bags checked in at domestic – and I had to haul out my wooden elephants at customs, but the guys were friendly and funny.

 So here we are at the end of our holiday. Was it wonderful? Yes, it was wonderful, despite abduction, theft, hospitalization and adverse weather!!