Hello all! We cant post notes without a computer it seems and they are few and far between in hostels out here. So well be putting entries on here now as we know its been a long time since we updated!! Australia posts soon to follow. Melaka and Singapore The last post of Asia... :( We bussed over the border into Singapore without too much trouble...we managed to avoid the only potentially awkward situation at the last minute. Standing in the queue we didnt realise everyone had filled out immigration forms already, and we almost got to the front without any! Wed have looked like right wallies, so we quickly huddled over a desk at one side and scribbled out our info, hoping our bus wouldnt leave us behind. Once in Singapore we had a long walk to the hostel, which was exhausting as there was a load of construction work going on so we had to navigate a labyrinth of wooden corridors and walkways to our road! The hostel was cool though, and despite being our first shared dormitory room since Hue in Vietnam, we had a good time there. Each capsule was sealed off from the outside world by a very useful and technical personal curtain you could pull across, so it almost felt like we werent in a dorm at all! In the attic they had swings, a whiteboard for doodles, and Disney monopoly! Plus they offered massage chairs, which were heavenly on our aching muscles after walking for so long with our bags. Singapore is a lovely clean city with very tough laws (no litter, no chewing gum, no spitting, etc) and it didnt disappoint. It was a refreshing change for us. We explored the local sights before heading to Orchard Street to pretend we had money to shop! (Like Nathan Road way back in Hong Kong, you can think of Orchard Road as a bigger, more expensive version of Londons Oxford Street. Roxie was in her element!) The Christmas/New Year lights were all still flashing up and down the road, which was very pretty and worth a look on their own. After this we went back to Chinatown and visited a hawker centre where we grabbed some chicken fried rice and noodles for £5. The most expensive part of our meal was the tiger beer we bought (cos Tiger beer is from Singapore so we thought we had to have just one) ..it was £4 though, and this upset Chris because he wanted more! The following day we went to Singapore zoo. Its classed as one of the best zoos in the world and it definitely didnt disappoint! We saw many varieties of monkeys and apes, plus tigers, lions, elephants, leopards, cheetahs... This list could go on and on! Chriss favourite would have to be the proboscis monkey... He had never seen a real one before and just loved their big long floppy noses :D. Roxie meanwhile loved the bunnies, tapirs, and especially the baby goats as they looked so cute when they ate leaves out of her hand! We stayed at the zoo until it closed and then waited for the night safari to open. This allowed us to see nocturnal animals up close. Totally cool experience, if you ever find ourself in Singapore you should definitely go!! We decided to do the walking trails instead of the train ride. Firstly this was because we got to see more animals that way, and secondly the queue for the train was over 2 hours long.. No thanks!! We did manage to do pretty much the entire thing without the crowds scaring the animals off, so it was very fun and enlightening. Chris greatly enjoyed an open bat enclosure, with huge bats and flying foxes inside, which Roxie refused to go in! Once we had walked around the trails we though maybe the queue for the train may have gone down, and we would go round again! Wishful thinking....The queue was still 2 hours long, so instead we grabbed a couple of cokes and waited for a show. While we sat and sipped, we witnessed a woman buying 4 330ml cans of Tiger beer, which cost her...wait for it....$57!!! Whaaat. Granted its zoo prices, and beer is expensive in Singapore anyway, but we would never dream of paying that (for lager!! Rookie!) We left Singapore after our extremely brief stay and headed for our final Asian destination: Melaka. Melaka is a pleasant, fairytale town (in the words of Harry from the film In Bruges). The brick buildings are all old fashioned and cool, a little river weaves through them, while taxi drivers cycle round the streets with absolutely bonkers decorations on their bikes (mostly flashing neon lights, songs, posters, flags etc relating to the movie Frozen.) One of these Melakan tuk tuk drivers was ignoring the Frozen craze and blasting Black Magic Woman by Santana instead (good man.) We were all for that! In Melaka we basically went round visiting all the iconic buildings and landmarks. The best was a huge marina museum that has been created, it was a replica of a famous war ship but we cant remember much about it...oops. Anyway you climb on board and look around at the impressive views (its quite a big ship!). Then you can go into the hull of the ship where the museum explains the history of the town of Melaka from when the Portuguese invaded. It was a really interesting exhibit! The day was slightly ruined by a charming young child vomiting on one of the stairways, whose parents just stood there gawping at him rather than doing anything about it. Too much fizzy drink we reckon. Of course it turned out they hadnt even let any staff know, so the horrible watery stomach stuff was being trodden everywhere by everyone else. Pretty disgusting! Oh well, anyway, we saw the new year in with some other people from our hostel, who were sitting outside and enjoying lots of brandy and coke. We all chatted and had sparklers and much banter, it was actually a great evening. A local man who was in the bar across the street came over to us, and started wishing us happy new year. He decided he wanted to do a magic trick for us at one point. He put his hands together and the counted to ten, lifting a finger every time he said a number. At first nobody got what he was trying to do and we all just kinda looked blank. Then some clever person realised that his counting was out, because he was missing a finger! He told us when he was 13 he had jumped over a fence, and on the way down the other side his ring got caught on the top. The weight of his body caused the ring to cut his finger off! Ouch! Anyway he seems fine now and spent the rest of the evening dancing in the street, so he must be doing ok. Listening to his story was worth it though as he brought out a can of Royal Stout for Chris but didnt charge us for it ... Great success!! So for the rest of our time in Melaka we chilled out, wandered round the markets and spent time planning for our first stop outside Asia - Australia! We were very sad to be leaving Asia, weve loved it and had some amazing experiences... but of course we stop at a couple of places on the way back which will be good. Until then, though, its time to head down under!! Stay tuned...
Posted on: Tue, 27 Jan 2015 12:51:27 +0000
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