17th and 18th March
SINGAPORE
Docked early to a beautiful sun rising and the view of all the high rise and Gardens By The Bay Hotel standing out.
Our trip today was the Heritage of Singapore so set off to first visit the Orchid Garden in the Botanical Gardens. The flowers were stunning in so many colours and varieties and also the trees and plants. We then went on to see the Merlion by the river then lunch in a Chinese restaurant. Our afternoon consisted of 3 visits to the old towns of China, Malay and India. Returned to the ship at 5.30pm, showered and went to dinner. Lovely day weather wise, hot and humid and 35 degrees!
The following day we had an early start as we were going to have Breakfast In The Wild in Singapore Zoo which consisted of a limited amount of people having a buffet breakfast and then having the orangutans coming to have theirs with you. Once on the coach we travelled to the zoo and were shown in to the outdoor area for a huge variety of breakfast dishes both Western and Asian. Then at 9.30am the food was put out for the orangutans to eat next to us. It was all open with no fences or barriers and a mother with two young ones came out and sat on a raised wooden bench to eat their fruit. We could all have our photo taken standing in front of them and the two young ones were very funny. The baby one was trying to grab my dress and I could feel it pinching my back side!!!!! It was absolutely brilliant and they also brought out a python snake which I held.
After, we had a few hours to look round the zoo but could really do with a whole day there. The zoo was amazing with the feeling of you were actually in with the animals due to the way they had the barriers between you and the animals. It was all set in like a jungle with huge trees shading you from the fierce sun. It actually got up to 37 degrees with 100% humidity !!!!!
In the afternoon we grabbed a taxi to Gardens By The Bay and walked through the living trees and gardens and into the hotel to have a nose around. All too soon it was time to head back to the ship to set sail at 6pm. We had a fabulous time in Singapore and it’s one of our favourite places to stop.