Singapore

Waking up after our first real sleep in five days, we headed into Singapore for our final day in Asia.

We headed to the harbour area, to catch a cable car to Sentosa Island. On the way we passed a shop whose name accurately described it’s contents.

Quite refreshing honesty from a store, we thought!

We caught the cable car, which passed over some of the bluest water we’d seen so far.

On the island itself, there was a mini-theme park. This was exactly how Genting should have been, with the rides and activities blending into the scenery seamlessly. We went on the Luge toboggan run, reaching death defying speeds as we hurtled towards the bottom!

We then caught the cable car back to the top and, breaking with years of tradition, actually bought the photo at the top!

One ice cream later, we headed back to Singapore Island. I realised whilst going over in the cable car that it was now less than twenty four hours to arriving in Australia, so got quite excited. This resulted in a telling off from Mandy and being sent to the naughty corner of the cable car.

We then headed to Raffles Place, where we walked along the waterside.

A group of Malteser people were causing mayhem, but luckily they jumped into the water and were not seen again!

We reached the Merlion Park. This is a statue of a mythical animal which is half lion and half fish. Strange combination – how does it chase down herds of wildebeest in the Serengeti with no legs!!

Completely exhausted by this stage, we headed back to the hostel to pack for our journey from Singapore to Perth, catching one final sunset in the process.

Singapore has been simply wonderful, and we have such regrets that we didn’t come here sooner. But, Asia is now over, so onwards to our next country and continent….

AUSTRALIA!

We were woken at 5am by our “breakfast” on the train. I say woken; yet again the idea of sleeping on a train was somewhat ruined by not actually sleeping. We kept nearly nodding off, just to be jolted by the bumpy track and didn’t manage to sleep for even a minute all night.

Around 6:30 am, we were told we had to leave the train with all our baggage in the next two minutes to go through Singapore customs. Cue a mad dash to throw our clothes on, jam everything we had taken out the night before into our packs, and head bleary eyed through a customs train station.

We arrived at 8am to the most deserted train station we’ve seen yet. Hoping for an ATM to get some Singapore Dollars, there was of course none for miles! Luckily, we still had a few US Dollars left from Cambodia so we managed to use a money changer to get our cab fare to the hostel.

After the night from hell, we really needed a good experience at the hostel. And we certainly got it. We’re staying at Hangout@Mount Emily hostel and it’s one of the nicest places we have stayed at on the trip.

We couldn’t check in until 3pm, so had six hours to kill. Each area has been named as xxxx out (our room is the Zonk Out zone for example) so we headed to the Veg Out zone.

We grabbed some books, arranged the bean bags and cushions together, and relaxed the nights stresses away, occasionally watching the 50 inch plasma tv at the same time. It was bliss. We also had free access to a coffee machine, with espresso strength servings, which helped to keep us awake for the duration.

The hostel has an amazing roof garden, with views of the Singapore skyline, and a standing shower pool which was extremely refreshing!

We went for a walk later on, grabbing an amazing cheap meal in a Chinese food mall down the road, and then went back on the roof to watch a spectacular sunset.

We’d heard that Singapore was extremely humid before we set off, but it hadn’t felt that way to us. Thinking it must have been a fluke of the weather, we thought nothing more of it until we spoke to a German guy that night who had just arrived. He looked and felt like he had entered a sauna! Perhaps after 7 weeks in Asia we’re used to heat and humidity!

We really like it here!!!