5th - 8th Jan - Singapore

The 8 hr journey to Singapore was OK since we had wee tellies to watch whatever we wanted. We got to the hostel late and went to bed. The place is in Chinatown and next day we went for a wander. It's a really nice area completely different from the corporate Orchard Road. Down side streets we found a few remaining old traditional colonial houses, which have somehow managed to remain standing as everything is rebuilt in concrete and glass.

We walked past Clarke Quay and Boat Quay with all the restaurants and bars and made our way up the Twin towers to the Cabel Car, which gives you fantastic views over the tiny island.

We ate in Chinatown, checking out stalls selling big nobbly veggies and wondering what they are - the food was fine and I was even able to find something veggie.

On the 7th we went to the Zoo to have breakfast with the Urungatans. The Urungatans are fab but it's the breakfast which steels the show for me - the Rotis with Veggie curry are amazing and I eat till I could eat no longer.

I've never been a fan of Zoos - don't really belive animals should be caged, although I do get the conservation that they do. Saying that, Singapore Zoos is one of the best I've been to, the moats and ditches make it look like there are no fences and the animals all have lots of space designed to look like their natural habitat and not a concrete cage.

We went to the Orchid Gardens which house thousands of varieties of Orchids in all colours and shapes they are quite fantastic.

As if this wasn't enought to do in a day we attended a tropical fruit tasting - bit apprehensive about finally coming face to face with the mad stuff we saw in the market. We started orndinarily enough with a starfruit then a small red banana - which was juicier than our yellow ones. Then came the fun stuff - fruit we'd neither seen nor heard of.
The Ciku looked a bit like a hairless kiwi fruit and had the texture of a pear but was really sweet and nice.
The Soursop was pineapply in texture but gluey and a bit strange but not horrid.
The Mangosteen is a small, hard, round, purple fruit with a raised flower motif at one side. Inside the thick coat there are small white segments which are sweet and really tasty, a bit like a lychee.
The last and scary fruit was the smelly Chempedak, a cousin of the Durian (which is banned on the subway and in hotels cos it smells so bad).The girl had it wrapped in a few bags and when she released it, it was smelly, really smelly like bad parmasen or sick. Neither of us were looking forward to the taste but perceivered - didn't want to look like wimps. We were wimps it tasted no better than it smelt and we spat it out. The girl eat a few bits saying it was really good - it's amazing what you eat when you grow up with it.

We ended the evening with a visit to Raffles which was pretty awful - total tourist trap. Dinner in a Tapas bar at Clarke Quay was good but the club we went to was terrible. The girl at the door told us it was about 3 pounds to get in but girls get free drink - we kept asking what's the catch - she kept saying none. We went in, we did get free drinks, the catch was that the place was empty and crap.

On our last day before the Train to Kuala Lumpar we headed up Orchard Road to do some last minute shopping - Mairi was very pleased to see Marks and Spensers - are they taking over the world.

The train was 7 hours and pretty boring although you got massive chairs and leg room in first class.